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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:16:25 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/1046-0.txt b/1046-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40163a5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1046-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4008 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1046 *** + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + +by H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + +1. THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + +2. HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + +3. THE LIKENESS OF GOD + +4. THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + +5. THE INVISIBLE KING + +6. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + +7. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + +THE ENVOY + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious +belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is +not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound +belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its +statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the +expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several particulars +opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be sympathetic with +all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is well to prepare the +prospective reader for statements that may jar harshly against deeply +rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him at the outset that the +departure from accepted beliefs is here no vague scepticism, but a quite +sharply defined objection to dogmas very widely revered. Let the writer +state the most probable occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon +which this book will be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma +of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, +which forcibly crystallised the controversies of two centuries and +formulated the creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are +based, was one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of +all religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations +which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only +disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief +possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for what +he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that undignified +gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory in this +connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, because he +believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the way of +those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of +exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at +the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing +the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from +among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible +to storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an +ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on +at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a believer, +but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more +sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer +cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is declaring that +there is a living God, different altogether from that Triune God and +nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book is like that of a +missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian +divinity of shark’s teeth and painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the +writer such elaborations as “begotten of the Father before all worlds” + are no better than intellectual shark’s teeth and oyster shells. His +purpose, like the purpose of that missionary, is not primarily to shock +and insult; but he is zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a +reverence that stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning +and proceeds with his matter. + +His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and +because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. + +In a previous book, “First and Last Things” (Constable and Co.), he has +stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought +as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that +is, seems to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and +individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the +opposition of the One and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the +Actual, all these oppositions express a certain structural and essential +duality in the activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition +of that duality ensue great masses of misconception. That was the +substance of “First and Last Things.” In this present book there is no +further attack on philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we +work at a less fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and +religious ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a +whole world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about +the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to think +that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a confusion +of intention due to a double meaning of the word “God”; that the word +“God” conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but several essentially +different ideas, incompatible one with another, and falling mainly into +one or other of two divergent groups; and that people slip carelessly +from one to the other of these groups of ideas and so get into +ultimately inextricable confusions. + +The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that +preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially +a struggle--obscured, of course, by many complexities--to reconcile and +get into a relationship these two separate main series of God-ideas. + +Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two +antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by +speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the +other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; +the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps developed most +highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a conception of God +tending to pantheism, to an idea of a comprehensive God as ruling +with justice rather than affection, to a conception of aloofness and +awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, which is opposed to this +idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human heart. The writer would +suggest that the great outline of the theological struggles of that +phase of civilisation and world unity which produced Christianity, was a +persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two different ideas +of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God of Nature +accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the former into +a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and +flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer +metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the +trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to +regard the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical +metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of +intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + +And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and +inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, +of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a +Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as something bridging the +great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the +human understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian +Trinity that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had +saturated the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in +unity, are probably the realities that account for the Third Person of +the Christian Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the +discussions that shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated +by such natural and fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, +of course, complicated from the outset; and particularly were they +complicated by the identification of the man Jesus with the theological +Christ, by materialistic expectations of his second coming, by +materialistic inventions about his “miraculous” begetting, and by the +morbid speculations about virginity and the like that arose out of +such grossness. They were still further complicated by the idea of the +textual inspiration of the scriptures, which presently swamped thought +in textual interpretation. That swamping came very early in the +development of Christianity. The writer of St. John’s gospel appears +still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, but Origen is already +hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of St. John’s gospel +was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He was emasculated +mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He quotes; his +predecessor thinks. + +But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of +early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition +of a position. The writer’s position here in this book is, firstly, +complete Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, +entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is +the key of his book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term +God. He uses the word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, +and he uses the term the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the +universe, and he declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in +any comprehensible terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living +reality in our lives who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking +from the point of view of practical religion, he is restricting and +defining the word God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he +is restricting it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence +from our religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the +religious life. + +Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an +Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book +acceptable to them if they will read “the Christ God” where the writer +has written “God.” They will then differ from him upon little more than +the question whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality +between the Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their +Creator God. This the orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many +pre-Nicaeans and many heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its +exact contrary. The Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with +the Manichaeans, that the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The +Christ God was his antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. +And passing beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be +found to many problems in comparative theology in this distinction +between the Being of Nature (cf. Kant’s “starry vault above”) and the +God of the heart (Kant’s “moral law within”). The idea of an antagonism +seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the +Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to +be “antagonistic.” On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and modern +Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God the creator +is altogether and without distinction also God the King of Mankind. +Christianity stands somewhere between such complete identification and +complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude between Father +and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of the Old +Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great +religions of the world between identification, complete separation, +equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that +these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in +the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these +matters. He believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to +salvation. He believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions +upon these points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials +of religion. The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and +exclusively with the God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, +and as the opinion which seems most expressive of modern thought, that +there is no reason to suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or +malignant towards men. But if the reader believes that God is Almighty +and in every way Infinite the practical outcome is not very different. +For the purposes of human relationship it is impossible to deny that +God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, as struggling and taking a part against +evil. + +The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely +extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this +book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in +such speculations and disputes. + + +Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that +is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., +1), nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It +is discussed in “First and Last Things,” Book IV, 4.] He omits this +question because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon +the essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the +relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is +a question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether +we are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of +or a rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of +salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of +consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and +in the world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect +righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal +death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite +for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is +identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value +than the snows of yester-year. + +H. G. W. + +Dunmow, May, 1917. + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + + +1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + + +Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an +exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago +and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, +and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the +new belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, +to trace how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman +world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always had +hitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The +renascent religion that is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; +it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; it has +always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to +see. It is perhaps plainer than it was and to more people--that is all. + +It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those +who hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. +Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley’s, speak of it as Christianity +without Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, +as a matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed +to any belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and +the imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a +parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far +more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of +that the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. + +This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the +opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme +neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect +of Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar +and emotions of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic +Trinitarians stuffed their fingers in their ears in affected horror at +the arguments of old Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity +was established as the essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those +three centuries, the centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest +martyrdoms, Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has +to be noted that a large majority of those who possess and repeat +the Christian creeds have come into the practice so insensibly from +unthinking childhood, that only in the slightest way do they realise the +nature of the statements to which they subscribe. They will speak +and think of both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the +doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire +fabric of all the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly +Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the +world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But +whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be, +there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to give +Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. +Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, +whatever the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its +decay. The renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and +sufficient in many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. +But it is so coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt +to state the shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs +and imperatives and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, +philosophical, and agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. + +The writer’s sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he +speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist +nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, +therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as +fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon +with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has +found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing +independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been +people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, +French, people brought up in a “Catholic atmosphere,” Positivists, +Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable +as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon +parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also +traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be +heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at +hand. + + + +2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + + +Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any +recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it +worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with +the plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are +still carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity +dissolve away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor +all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven +nor earth, and that he has little to identify him with that hereditary +God of the Jews who became the “Father” in the Christian system. On the +other hand he will assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is +a spirit, a person, a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, +inspiring, and lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human +soul. He will be much less certain in his denials that his God has a +close resemblance to the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) +“Christ.” . . . + +The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of +universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any +God and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense +of God within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the +religious experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the +True God is a generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of +that bickering monopolist who “will have none other gods but Me”; and +when a human heart cries out--to what name it matters not--for a larger +spirit and a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, +straightway the nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to +the call. The True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted +the many-handed symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. +Where there is faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready +to clasp the hands that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness +behind the ivory and gold. + +The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly +among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything +else, a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, +to be limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing +with us and through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and +future; he is within time and not outside it. And they point out that +this is really what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help +from God, feels and believes. Our practice with God is better than our +theory. None of us really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a +trois, the Trinity, which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies +of Alexandria and Syria declared to be God. We pray to one single +understanding person. But so far the tactics of those Trinitarians at +Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in their ears, have prevailed in this +world; this was no matter for discussion, they declared, it was a Holy +Mystery full of magical terror, and few religious people have thought +it worth while to revive these terrors by a definite contradiction. The +truly religious have been content to lapse quietly into the comparative +sanity of an unformulated Arianism, they have left it to the scoffing +Atheist to mock at the patent absurdities of the official creed. But one +magnificent protest against this theological fantasy must have been +the work of a sincerely religious man, the cold superb humour of that +burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no doubt facetiously and then quite +seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, which, by an irony far beyond +its original intention, has become at last the accepted creed of the +church. + +The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to +its end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least +patient with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are +very definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth +of the Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of +assuming that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea +is meant. But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and +bad associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange +preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even +make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different +and antagonistic figure. + +It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led +the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for +their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral +quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who +saddled Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme +poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. +Many of these makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who +had even to be baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been +pitchforked into the church from civil life; they lived in a time +of pitiless factions and personal feuds; they had to conduct their +disputations amidst the struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs +and favourites swayed their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their +decisions. There was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian +world than there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience +of educated opinion by which a theory could be judged did not equal, +either in numbers or accuracy of information, the present population of +Constantinople. To these conditions we owe the claim that the Christian +God is a magic god, very great medicine in battle, “in hoc signo +vinces,” and the argument so natural to the minds of those days and so +absurd to ours, that since he had ALL power, all knowledge, and existed +for ever and ever, it was no use whatever to set up any other god +against him. . . . + +By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, +without which everyone was to be “damned everlastingly,” a conception +of God and of Christ’s relation to God, of which even by the Christian +account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so +negligent and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as +scarcely to make mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the +relationship of the Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one +ambiguous and disputed utterance in St. John’s gospel (XV. 26). Most of +the teachings of Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive +student into assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. +Someone floats an opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, +in regard, for example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of +his birth. The new opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds +unaccustomed to so definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil +they fly to a contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit +that they worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor +deny the divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be +polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from +the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the +theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions, +and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a +reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian +doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology +by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and +still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle +was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political +opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing +appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit +unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the +midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all +Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all +those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the +beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not +care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased +to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was +secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by +threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common +faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the +Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic +destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none +of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a +real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left +to work themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist +of Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the +sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to +the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice +formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory +of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the +cement of Christian unity. + +It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are +becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian’s +deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion +declares himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with +self-complacency. There is no reason why they should do so. That many of +us have gone from them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is +not that we who went out into the wilderness which we thought to be +a desert, away from their creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are +returning. It is that we have gone on still further, and are beyond that +desolation. Never more shall we return to those who gather under the +cross. By faith we disbelieved and denied. By faith we said of that +stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that incoherent accumulation of antique +theological notions, the Nicene deity, “This is certainly no God.” And +by faith we have found God. . . . + + + +3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + + +There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he +should supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist +thing to say: “OUR God made the whole universe. Don’t you think that +it would be wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do +anything of the sort?” + +The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this +style of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into +the Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, +demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, +the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for +its divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like +Buddhism in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin +of the universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space +and time. It sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with +superlatives which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the +Hegelians with the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or +the Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known +things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is +a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or +ill. Of that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we +know nothing; to us it is no more than the limit of understanding, +the unknown beyond. It may be of practically limitless intricacy and +possibility. The new religion does not pretend that the God of its life +is that Being, or that he has any relation of control or association +with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows all or much more +than we do about that ultimate Being. + +For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human +analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being +reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms +of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the +ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an +understanding of relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into +those black wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind +will take us. + +That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with +the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled +Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon +which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a +great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. +It may be that they may never be able to deal with it. + + + +4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + + +So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to +the modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and +hate. It is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out +of this veiled being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether +inconceivable, is another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through +matter and clothing itself in continually changing material forms, +the maker of our world, Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that +inscrutable being as a wave comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. +It is as it were a great wave rushing through matter and possessed by +a spirit. It is a breeding, fighting thing; it pants through the jungle +track as the tiger and lifts itself towards heaven as the tree; it is +the rabbit bolting for its life and the dove calling to her mate; it +crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts and devours, it pursues and eats +itself in order to live still more eagerly and hastily; it is every +living thing, of it are our passions and desires and fears. And it +is aware of itself not as a whole, but dispersedly as individual +self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly from every one of the +sentient creatures it has called into being. They look out for their +little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, full of the passions +of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, submitting only to +brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are beings of strain +and conflict and competition. They are living substance still mingled +painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being clothes itself +bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and bright with +threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, hold their +own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . . + +This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the +Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We +may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant +by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic +books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether +this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the +Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary +thought there is no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either +good or evil; it is conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all +the pain and conflict of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, +the delight and hope of youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a +hundred thousand sorts of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful +limbs of man and woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And +in it, as part of it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, +struggling against the final abandonment to death, do we all live, +as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, revengeful, hopeful, weary, +disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, bored, in pain, mood +after mood but always fearing death, with no certainty and no coherence +within us, until we find God. And God comes to us neither out of the +stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still small voice within. + + + +5. GOD IS WITHIN + + +God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men +and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he +has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of +mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is +by our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, +boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our +friend and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the +belief of the modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel +idea about this God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This +is the God that men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as +the Messiah or the Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the +purposelessness of life. The new religion has but disentangled the idea +of him from the absolutes and infinities and mysteries of the Christian +theologians; from mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and +intellectual pretentiousness of a vanished age. + +Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, +no mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement +of what we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of +life, we all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if +we seek salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All +this is in the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states +it were to be instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people +would find their way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. +To this all true religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, +must ultimately come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. +Christian thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian +theology and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection +about its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the +early fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of +reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them with +OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin birth, +with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic minds. How rich +is the literature of authoritative Christianity with decisions upon the +continuing virginity of Mary and the virginity of Joseph--ideas that +first arose in Arabia as a Moslem gloss upon Christianity--and how +little have these peepings and pryings to do with the needs of the heart +and the finding of God! + +Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes +as that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled “The Faith and +the War,” a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and +canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring +and religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting +under this load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great +articles, outside the needle’s eye that leads to God. + + + +6. THE COMING OF GOD + + +Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God +entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue +about God; it relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe +and reverence that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as +one tells of a friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a +beautiful thing found and picked up by the wayside. + +So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal +salvation tallies very closely with the account of “conversion” as it +is given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already +familiar to the reader of William James’s “Varieties of Religious +Experience.” It describes an initial state of distress with the +aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of +the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to +form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known +to many sorts of Christian as “conviction of sin”; it is, at any rate, a +conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of +God comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without +substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is +expounded by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all +those of the new faith with whose personal experience I have any +intimacy, the idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea +floating about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, +but it is realised that if there were such a being he would supply the +needed consolation and direction, his continuing purpose would knit +together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take +the sting from death. Under this realisation the idea is pursued and +elaborated. For a time there is a curious resistance to the suggestion +that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by such phrases +as the Purpose in Things, as the Racial Consciousness, as the Collective +Mind. + +I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea +of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against +divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching +and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ +as the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the +idea that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is +a novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may +think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the +Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not +seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the +idea that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so +much about that God and so little of any other. With that release their +minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. + +Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This +cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the +attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. +It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, +sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is +completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with +and touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It +is as if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us +into fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . + +“Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.” + +The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, +or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. +It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There +is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come +our lives are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of +God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has +found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. +One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the +confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an +essential and enduring happiness and courage. + +There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but +under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this +manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however +mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is +himself finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength +to strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens +to meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The +faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would +see God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil +of the temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of +this huge friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little +beings. To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all +our days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with +him. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + + +1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + + +Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake +that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living +water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is +synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; +the sediment subsides. + +A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without +mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance +of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or +nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord +evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need +consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the +rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being through which the +light of consciousness shines--the light of consciousness and will of +which God is the sun. + +So that every need of human life, every disappointment and +dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may +and do come to the realisation of God. + +There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life +from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men’s +religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel +doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their +mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from +without, the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards +immortality. It is possible to classify the appeals men make for God +under the headings of their chief system of effort, their efforts to +understand, their fear and their struggles for safety and happiness, the +craving of their restlessness for peace, their angers against +disorder and their desire for the avenger; their sexual passions and +perplexities. . . . + +Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort +of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind +of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the +synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of +God grows clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, +leads to the endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent +infirmities of the human mind. But in these days one does not argue +greatly about dogma. Almost every conceivable error about unity, about +personality, about time and quantity and genus and species, about +begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity and every kink +in the difficult mind of man, has been thrust forward in some form of +dogma. Beside the errors of thought are the errors of emotion. Fear and +feebleness go straight to the Heresies that God is Magic or that God +is Providence; restless egotism at leisure and unchallenged by urgent +elementary realities breeds the Heresies of Mysticism, anger and hate +call for God’s Judgments, and the stormy emotions of sex gave mankind +the Phallic God. Those who find themselves possessed by the new spirit +in religion, realise very speedily the necessity of clearing the mind +of all these exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The +search for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value +until most has been swept away. + + + +2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + + +One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the +most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from +wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are +the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the +clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless +variety and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple +confusions. The former are the errors of the study, the latter the +superstitions that spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in +our social structure out of a barbaric past. + +To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate +doctrine of the Trinity, dogmas about God’s absolute qualities, such odd +deductions as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of +Mary and Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox +Christianity. Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian +account, expound or recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was +left for the Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, +busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was +driving at, three centuries after their Master was dead. . . . + +Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their +inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary +perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error +that creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the +limitations upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle +and disputation across the path by which men come to God. It would not +matter very much if it were not that simpler souls are caught in these +webs. Every great religious system in the world is choked by such webs; +each system has its own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which +make up doctrinal Christianity and imprison the mind of the western +world to-day, not one seems to have been known to the nominal founder +of Christianity. Jesus Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; +never spoke clearly of the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of +salvation and the significance of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose +that he left his apostles without instructions, that were necessary to +their eternal happiness, that he could give them the Lord’s Prayer but +leave them to guess at the all-important Creed,* and that the Church +staggered along blindly, putting its foot in and out of damnation, +until the “experts” of Nicaea, that “garland of priests,” marshalled by +Constantine’s officials, came to its rescue. . . . From the conversion +of Paul onward, the heresies of the intellect multiplied about Christ’s +memory and hid him from the sight of men. We are no longer clear about +the doctrine he taught nor about the things he said and did. . . . + + * Even the “Apostles’ Creed” is not traceable earlier than + the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched + formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down + for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and + used as a sort of password among the elect. + +We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at +heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to +spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in +which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. +There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, +but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand +different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks +of the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of +the Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of +those theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, +who sit on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the +temples of India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of +the human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural +heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, +and which are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to +keep constant watch. They return very insidiously. + + + +3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + + +One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to +consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + +It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our +souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to +hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of +acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led +to believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their +own souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing +more for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want +him, but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls +think to make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain +things that are supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such +as saying prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in +a blind, industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early +Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, +or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these +fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the normal +course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial log-roller. +He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty ailments, contrives +unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the like, he averts +bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and does a thousand +such services for his little clique of faithful people. The pious are +represented as being constantly delighted by these little surprises, +these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or contrawise +he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their religious +attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or disorganises the +careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is represented as going +Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a Staffordshire worker +goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is saturated with this +fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT +JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish magazine. It is +an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the qualities of +the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their +recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, +but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true +God. + +There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called +THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of +various clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen +who belong to the little school of thought which this magazine +represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the +Established Church of England, that is to say within the Anglican +communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It contains among other papers +a very entertaining summary by a gentleman entitled--I cite the unusual +title-page of the periodical--“Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.,” of the views +of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are +distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only +upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon the relations of the +weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God +has been persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points +out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the +British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet state of +the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in the winter +of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in delaying the +relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the difficult question +why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, did not, instead +of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, adopt the +more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the German +stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting +their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction +or gravitation. + +Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only +conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in +the established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity +here with nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find +indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in +endless official Christian utterances on the part of German and British +and Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently +ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long +sermons--among other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly +convinced that God can be invoked by ritual--for example by special +days of national prayer or an increased observance of Sunday--or made +malignant by neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their +idea of him. The ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic +pettiness of God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and +resentments of “Heaven” is at least equally strong. + +But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God +of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men’s ends or the ends of +nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies +and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and +weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not +coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs us. . . . + + + +4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + + +Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that +calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and +effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling +about the order of events for our personal advantages. + +The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in “Tartarin +in the Alps.” You will remember how Tartarin’s friend assured him that +all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and +far too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, +that all the precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks +guarded against falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and +the crevasses at their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment +bags. If the mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned +back by specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved +with incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of +the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid +soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And provided there +is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would +work altogether well if there were no crevasses. + +Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. +But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? + +There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis +Younghusband called “Within.” [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the +confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence +until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and +campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he +saw much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The +loss of a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. +Then coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down +by an automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and +mind. His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost +to see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and +the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine +essential simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do +so. His confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether +destroyed. His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously +he reconstructed his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book +typical of an age and of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth +reading. + +That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how +near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + + +“The existence of an outside Providence,” he writes, “who created us, +who watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, +we have found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a +Holy Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its +fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we +can be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual +impulsion at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, +is the supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always +attain to light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too +hard and it is utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. +But in a few it bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who +in some heavenly moment of their lives have not been conscious of its +presence. We may not be able to give it outward expression, but we know +that it is there.” . . . + + +God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining +and correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, +there is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an +ill-tended engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel +guides your steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your +innocent children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. +Cherish no delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and +chance on your own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those +you care for. Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. +But God will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the +dark ice-cave God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He +will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether it +is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up in his +victory. + + +5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + + +God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from +ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and +adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he +makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the +sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside +one, shoulder to shoulder. + +The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from +life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of +the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many +mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command +services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of +indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence +and give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with +the divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how +ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed +the true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a +spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. +The true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, +calling for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must +accept his discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not +by thinking about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + + + +6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + + +Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral +indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were +more often “wrath” than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic +deity who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the +influence of the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and +who became also the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men +against everything that is unlike themselves, against strange people +and cheerful people, against unfamiliar usages and things they do +not understand, embodied itself in this conception of a malignant and +partisan Deity, perpetually “upset” by the little things people did, +and contriving murder and vengeance. Now this God would be drowning +everybody in the world, now he would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, +now he would be inciting his congenial Israelites to the most terrific +pogroms. This divine “frightfulness” is of course the natural +human dislike and distrust for queer practices or for too sunny a +carelessness, a dislike reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape +in us, liberating the latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it +an excuse and pressing permission upon it, handing the thing hated and +feared over to its secular arm. . . . + + * It is not so generally understood as it should be among + English and American readers that a very large proportion of + early Christians before the creeds established and + regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely + that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel + against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as + Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived + for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held + by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the + Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The + catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the + circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely + on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew + God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, + when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only + the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. + +It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct +for restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet +familiar things, that these things of the True God should so readily +liberate cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to +tend and protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None +the less, right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God +the Persecutor and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent +years that the growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men +a little ashamed of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. +The recent literature of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this +trouble. + +Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying +the irascibility of his God and teaching “the Kaffirs of Natal” the +dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. “We cannot allow it to be said,” + the Dean of Cape Town insisted, “that God was not angry and was not +appeased by punishment.” He was angry “on account of Sin, which is a +great evil and a great insult to His Majesty.” The case of the Rev. +Charles Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the +Church’s insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to +be found in the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in +the latest edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it +appears to have been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the +church would prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey +to-day. + + + +7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + + +Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of +miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed +parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and +he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word “God” first came +into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, +as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great +convenience to the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her +charges and enforce her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own +aims. But indeed, the teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul +of a child scarcely less dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason +rebels and is crushed under this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many +minds never rise again from their injury. They remain for the rest of +life spiritually crippled and debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a +persuasion of relentless cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + +I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell +were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed +in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic +monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting +to condemn and to “strike me dead”; his flames as ready as a grill-room +fire. He was over me and about my feebleness and silliness and +forgetfulness as the sky and sea would be about a child drowning in +mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of +the true God in me, I flung this Lie out of my mind, and for many years, +until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the +name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous scar in my heart where a +fearful demon had been. + +I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this +bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still +living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God +should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to +formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; +they dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, +of nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old +watching spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in +their hearts, echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, +fear-driven. For the true God has no lash of fear. And how the +foul-minded bigot, with his ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, +gesticulating hands, his bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this +harvest of fear the ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown +for him! How he loves the importance of denunciation, and, himself +a malignant cripple, to rally the company of these crippled souls to +persecute and destroy the happy children of God! . . . + +Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real +wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and +that affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions +of instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak +for me. This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a +debate in the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the +publications of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: + + +“I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction +of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement +that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the +proper time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in +the book. Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and +to these children I find these statements addressed in the book: + +“‘It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must +acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.’ + +“I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there +were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not +mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that +it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to +its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the +words, to say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious +question: + +“‘Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to +his priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their +sins. It was to priests alone that Jesus said: “Receive ye the Holy +Ghost.” . . . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a +terrible sickness, and casts souls into hell.’ + +“That is addressed to a child six years of age. + +“‘I have known,’ the book continues, ‘poor children who concealed their +sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented +with remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly +have gone to the everlasting fires of hell.’” . . . + + +Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time +after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their +preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are +among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, +lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not +of many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known +sacerdotalism this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly +power release an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of +suffering and a hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any +other sort of men. + + + +8. THE CHILDREN’S GOD + + +Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for +an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still +children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to +feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . + +The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no +appetite for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for +the attention of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who +dream of glory in the nursery, who love to hear it said, “The children +adore him.” If children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and +mutual forbearance, they will be ready for the true God as their needs +bring them within his scope. They should be left to their innocence, and +to their trust in the innocence of the world, as long as they can be. +They should be told only of God as a Great Friend whom some day they +will need more and understand and know better. That is as much as most +children need. The phrases of religion put too early into their mouths +may become a cant, something worse than blasphemy. + +Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in +their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not +follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological +formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike +or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a +distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may +begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain +bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, +through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our +children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his +limitless charity. . . . + +With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and +that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + + + +9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + + +In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very +considerable disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of +sexual thought and feeling. But in the early days of religion the two +things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, +for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary “wrath” of +their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of +the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative +of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the +Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far +Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the +representative Christian churches still make marriage into a mystical +sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the Roman communion exacts +the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, regardless of the +mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. Nearly every +Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can +contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat illegitimate +children as unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and +an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent this +statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, but let +them consult their orthodox authorities. + +One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or +sinful in itself and what is held to be one’s duty or a nation’s duty +because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to +do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our +institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. +But my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but +that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the +professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not +the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These +sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most +violent efforts are made--with a sense of complete righteousness--to +prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be +explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God in +the minds of great numbers of his exponents. His disentanglement from +that plexus is incomplete. Sexual things are still to the orthodox +Christian, sacred things. + +Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately +concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual +essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of +Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the +most petty and intimate of observances--many of which are now habitually +disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the +evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled +our conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual +rules that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ +himself was one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is +the clearest evidence in several instances of his disregard of the +rule and his insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit +underlying and often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser +matter, has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further +than it was obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his +principle that in all these matters there is no need for superstitious +fear, that the interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the +unembarrassed intelligence of men. The church has followed him far +enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics +against what they are pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, +a profound inconsistency. One seems to hear their distant protests when +one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans +and sinners. The clergy of our own days play the part of the +New Testament Pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete +unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing +with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, unless she was in a very +high social position indeed, or blending with disreputable characters +without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by-play. +Those who profess modern religion do but follow in these matters a +course entirely compatible with what has survived of the authentic +teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, and that +religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual +things are a barbaric inheritance. + +But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that +those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, +let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding +paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. +We would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and +observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more +wholly his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself +unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes +all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body +as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God’s service as +he can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such +a consecrated life. It is a matter between the individual and his +conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may +do or not do, what he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. +Nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to determine and perform +the right act. Nothing can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here +being insisted upon is that none of these things has immediately to do +with God or religious emotion, except only the general will to do right +in God’s service. The detailed interpretation of that “right” is for the +dispassionate consideration of the human intelligence. + +All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of +the emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most +obstinately recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always +tending to leak back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented +priesthood of the Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the +extreme practices of the Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike +predecessors of Christianity, there seems to be an extraordinary belief +that chastity was not invented until Christianity came, and that the +religious life is largely the propitiation of God by feats of sexual +abstinence. But a superstitious abstinence that scars and embitters +the mind, distorts the imagination, makes the body gross and keeps it +unclean, is just as offensive to God as any positive depravity. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE LIKENESS OF GOD + + +1. GOD IS COURAGE + +Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as +the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside +from our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God +is. Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there +is always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I +have not called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + +And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + + + +2. GOD IS A PERSON + + +And next GOD IS A PERSON. + +Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are +very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of +their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, +who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; +who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless +and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against +much that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be +loyal; he is our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our +lives. He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He +hopes and attempts. . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no +Infinite. He is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + +Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking +about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show +us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, +presently they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself +suddenly in the net of those ancient controversies between species +and individual, between the one and the many, which arise out of the +necessarily imperfect methods of the human mind. Upon these matters +there has been much pregnant writing during the last half century. Such +ideas as this writer has to offer are to be found in a previous little +book of his, “First and Last Things,” in which, writing as one without +authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man +vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to +elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by +which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to +say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision +of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent imperfections. If +we do not use our phraseology with a certain courage, and take that +of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us with a certain +politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any discussion in +so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, denials, and +wranglings. And about this word “person” it is necessary to be as clear +and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of +mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible. + +Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a +man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; +we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has +forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided +against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the +contrary we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him +continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only +abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the +idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word “person” there is +more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the +person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as +opposed to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the +gods of primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that +quality of person. They were thought of as living in very splendid +bodies and as acting consistently. If they were invisible in the +ordinary world it was because they were aloof or because their “persons” + were too splendid for weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated +view of the person of the Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who +insisted upon seeing Zeus in the glories that were sacred to Juno, +was utterly consumed. The early Islamic conception of God, like the +conception of most honest, simple Christians to-day, was clearly, in +spite of the theologians, of a very exalted anthropomorphic personality +away somewhere in Heaven. The personal appearance of the Christian God +is described in The Revelation, and however much that description may be +explained away by commentators as symbolical, it is certainly taken by +most straightforward believers as a statement of concrete reality. +Now if we are going to insist upon this primary meaning of person and +individual, then certainly God as he is now conceived is not a person +and not an individual. The true God will never promenade an Eden or a +Heaven, nor sit upon a throne. + +But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian +theological thought--that, for instance, which has found such delicate +and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of Rabindranath +Tagore--has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic insistence upon +a body. From the earliest ages man’s mind has found little or no +difficulty in the idea of something essential to the personality, a soul +or a spirit or both, existing apart from the body and continuing after +the destruction of the body, and being still a person and an individual. +From this it is a small step to the thought of a person existing +independently of any existing or pre-existing body. That is the idea +of theological Christianity, as distinguished from the Christianity +of simple faith. The Triune Persons--omnipresent, omniscient, and +omnipotent--exist for all time, superior to and independent of matter. +They are supremely disembodied. One became incarnate--as a wind eddy +might take up a whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern +religion conceive that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea +of spirituality, a disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the +limits of the conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that +a person, a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal +body. . . . They declare that God is without any specific body, that he +is immaterial, that he can affect the material universe--and that means +that he can only reach our sight, our hearing, our touch--through the +bodies of those who believe in him and serve him. + +His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, in his +essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with space. He is +not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. Since the period when +all the great theologies that prevail to-day were developed, there have +been great changes in the ideas of men towards the dimensions of time +and space. We owe to Kant the release from the rule of these ideas as +essential ideas. Our modern psychology is alive to the possibility of +Being that has no extension in space at all, even as our speculative +geometry can entertain the possibility of dimensions--fourth, fifth, Nth +dimensions--outside the three-dimensional universe of our experience. +And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an infinite +remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere immediately at +hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere immediately at +hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of men. He is in +immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + +But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter or +space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; that +he changes and becomes more even as a man’s purpose gathers itself +together; that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a beginning, +an awakening, and that as mankind grows he grows. With our eyes he looks +out upon the universe he invades; with our hands, he lays hands upon +it. All our truth, all our intentions and achievements, he gathers to +himself. He is the undying human memory, the increasing human will. + +But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that this +is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who believe in the +new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not an aggregate +but a synthesis. He is not merely the best of all of us, but a Being in +himself, composed of that but more than that, as a temple is more than a +gathering of stones, or a regiment is more than an accumulation of men. +They point out that a man is made up of a great multitude of cells, each +equivalent to a unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor +is he simply just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of +them. You can take away these and these and these, and he still remains. +And he can detach part of himself and treat it as if it were not +himself, just as a man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer the martyr +did, thrust his hand into the flames. A man is none the less himself +because his hair is cut or his appendix removed or his leg amputated. + +And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that +spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the +tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But +men love England, which is made up of such things. + +And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither +body nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to +him, though we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he +sometimes uses. And we may think of him as having moods and aspects--as +a man has--and a consistency we call his character. + +These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey this +modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person whose will +and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands the religious +life seeks conversion by argument. First one must feel the need of God, +then one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God. That much is no +more than turning one’s face to the east to see the coming of the sun. +One may still doubt if that direction is the east or whether the sun +will rise. The real coming of God is not that. It is a change, an +irradiation of the mind. Everything is there as it was before, only now +it is aflame. Suddenly the light fills one’s eyes, and one knows that +God has risen and that doubt has fled for ever. + + +3. GOD IS YOUTH + + +The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + +God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into the +future. + +Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is in +those systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian attempt to +represent or symbolise God the Father which is not a bearded, aged man. +White hair, beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred such symptoms of senile +decay are there. These marks of senility do not astonish our modern +minds in the picture of God, only because tradition and usage have +blinded our eyes to the absurdity of a time-worn immortal. Jove too and +Wotan are figures far past the prime of their vigour. These are gods +after the ancient habit of the human mind, that turned perpetually +backward for causes and reasons and saw all things to come as no more +than the working out of Fate,-- + + “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe.” + +But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but our +future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure of +a beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his +strength. He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, eager +to go forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that was +still but a promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, discriminating +weapon, his eyes should be as bright as swords; his lips should fall +apart with eagerness for the great adventure before him, and he should +be in very fresh and golden harness, reflecting the rising sun. Death +should still hang like mists and cloud banks and shadows in the valleys +of the wide landscape about him. There should be dew upon the threads of +gossamer and little leaves and blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + + + +4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + + +One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most trite +and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that deserves +careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; there are people +who will say they love new potatoes; there are a multitude of loves +of different colours and values. There is the love of a mother for her +child, there is the love of brothers, there is the love of youth and +maiden, and the love of husband and wife, there is illicit love and the +love one bears one’s home or one’s country, there are dog-lovers and the +loves of the Olympians, and love which is a passion of jealousy. Love +is frequently a mere blend of appetite and preference; it may be +almost pure greed; it may have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit +self-forgetful nor generous. It is possible so to phrase things that the +furtive craving of a man for another man’s wife may be made out to be +a light from God. Yet about all the better sorts of love, the sorts of +love that people will call “true love,” there is something of that same +exaltation out of the narrow self that is the essential quality of the +knowledge of God. + +Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the +exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the windows +by which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is the open door +by which we freely go. And God never dies, nor disappoints, nor betrays. + +The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its +earlier phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much +possessiveness and exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced trust, +and far too great a kindred with jealousy to be like the love of God. +The former is a dramatic relationship that drifts to a climax, and then +again seeks presently a climax, and that may be satiated or fatigued. +But the latter is far more like the love of comrades, or like the +love of a man and a woman who have loved and been through much trouble +together, who have hurt one another and forgiven, and come to a complete +and generous fellowship. There is a strange and beautiful love that men +tell of that will spring up on battlefields between sorely wounded men, +and often they are men who have fought together, so that they will do +almost incredibly brave and tender things for one another, though but +recently they have been trying to kill each other. There is often a pure +exaltation of feeling between those who stand side by side manfully in +any great stress. These are the forms of love that perhaps come nearest +to what we mean when we speak of the love of God. + +That is man’s love of God, but there is also something else; there is +the love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this is not +an indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love of a woman +for her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; God must love +his followers as a great captain loves his men, who are so foolish, so +helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet whose faith alone makes +him possible. It is an austere love. The spirit of God will not hesitate +to send us to torment and bodily death. . . . + +And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach +him. He has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to make +himself known to us. When at last the individual breaks through the +limiting darknesses to him, the irradiation of that moment, the smile +and soul clasp, is in God as well as in man. He has won us from his +enemy. We come staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, +to fight for his kingdom henceforth, until at last we are altogether +taken up into his being. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + + + +1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + + +It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to drape +about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, the +honest Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth bare, is +constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. It will be +interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme instability of +absolute negation. + +Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who was +a very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the other day. +He was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man almost of the rank +and quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A decade or more ago he wrote +a book called “The Nature of Man,” in which he set out very plainly a +number of illuminating facts about life. They are facts so illuminating +that presently, in our discussion of sin, they will be referred to +again. But it is not Professor Metchnikoff’s intention to provide +material for a religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to +overthrow theology as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his +book, the thing upon which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no +inkling of the fact that he has no longer the right to conceive theology +as he conceives it. The development of his science has destroyed that +right. + +He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our ideas +of individuality and species, and how the import of theology is modified +through these changes. When he comes from his own world of modern +biology to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. He attacks +religion as he understood it when first he fell out with it fifty years +or more ago. + +Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes that +biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the general +scheme and method of our thinking. + +The influence of biology upon thought in general consists essentially +in diminishing the importance of the individual and developing the +realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of super-individual, a +modifying and immortal super-individual, maintaining itself against the +outer universe by the birth and death of its constituent individuals. +Natural History, which began by putting individuals into species as if +the latter were mere classificatory divisions, has come to see that +the species has its adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding +in interest and importance the individual adventure. “The Origin of +Species” was for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + +The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be +stated plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we current +individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us distributed between +two parents, then between four grandparents, and so on backward, we are +temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an ancestral diffusion; we +stand our trial, and presently our individuality is dispersed and +mixed again with other individualities in an uncertain multitude of +descendants. But the species is not like this; it goes on steadily from +newness to newness, remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual +life is a mere episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing +adventure of the species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of +life and the distresses of life in the fact that the species is still +very painfully adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under +which it lives. The conflict of life is a continual pursuit of +adjustment, and the “ills of life,” of the individual life that is, +are due to its “disharmonies.” Man, acutely aware of himself as an +individual adventure and unawakened to himself as a species, finds life +jangling and distressful, finds death frustration. He fails and falls as +a person in what may be the success and triumph of his kind. He does +not apprehend the struggle or the nature of victory, but only his own +gravitation to death and personal extinction. + +Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti-religious +because to him as to so many Europeans religion is confused with +priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with disagreeable early +impressions of irrational repression and misguidance. How completely he +misconceives the quality of religion, how completely he sees it as an +individual’s affair, his own words may witness: + + +“Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions +which as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future +life has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life +after death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On +the other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy +humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought +of the inevitability of death.” + + +Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, and by +a future life the prolongation of individuality. But Buddhism does +not in truth appear ever to have been concerned with that, and modern +religious developments are certainly not under that preoccupation with +the narrower self. Buddhism indeed so far from “preaching resignation” + to death, seeks as its greater good a death so complete as to be +absolute release from the individual’s burthen of KARMA. Buddhism seeks +an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY. The deeper one pursues religious +thought the more nearly it approximates to a search for escape from the +self-centred life and over-individuation, and the more it diverges from +Professor Metchnikoff’s assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to +lose one’s self. But Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied +that this is so, is then left free to take the very essentials of the +religious life as they are here conceived and present them as if +they were the antithesis of the religious life. His book, when it is +analysed, resolves itself into just that research for an escape from the +painful accidents and chagrins of individuation, which is the ultimate +of religion. + +At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true solution +round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his most hopeful +satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such a scientific +prolongation of life that the instinct for self-preservation will be at +last extinct. If that is not the very “resignation” he imputes to the +Buddhist I do not know what it is. He believes that an individual which +has lived fully and completely may at last welcome death with the same +instinctive readiness as, in the days of its strength, it shows for the +embraces of its mate. We are to be glutted by living to six score and +ten. We are to rise from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We +shall go to death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men +are to have a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their +prime, and their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a +period of ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and twenty or +thereabouts) and public service! + +(But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the +simple pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? Metchnikoff +never faces that question. And again, what of the man who is challenged +to die for right at the age of thirty? What does the prolongation +of life do for him? And where are the consolations for accidental +misfortune, for the tormenting disease or the lost limb?) + +But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure +religiosity. The prolongation of life gives place to sheer +self-sacrifice as the fundamental “remedy.” And indeed what other remedy +has ever been conceived for the general evil of life? + + +“On the other hand,” he writes, “the knowledge that the goal of human +life can be attained only by the development of a high degree of +solidarity amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that +the enjoyment of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes +ix. 7-10)* is opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and +the evil that comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able +to redress the disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly +to the improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind. + + * Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine + with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let + thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no + ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all + the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee + under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy + portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest + under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it + with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor + knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. + +“In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted +continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has +produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In +the problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of +nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able +to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify +his own constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . . + +“To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame +the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of +science. + +“If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion +of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And +if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith +alone, the faith must be in the power of science.” + + +Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of +“religion” and “philosophy” as remedies for human ills, is nothing less +than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into +terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really +over-individuation and that salvation is escape from self into the +larger being of life. . . . + +What can this “religion of the future” be but that devotion to the +racial adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already found, +like gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed away the +confusions and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an inquiry setting +out from a purely religious starting-point we have already reached +conclusions identical with this ultimate refuge of an extreme +materialist. + +This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our God--an +altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + + + +2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + + +Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness +and generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were the +statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a religious +writer would say--except that God is not named. Religious metaphors +abound. It is as if they accepted the living body of religion but denied +the bones that held it together--as they might deny the bones of a +friend. It is true, they would admit, the body moves in a way that +implies bones in its every movement, but--WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE +BONES. + +The disputes in theory--I do not say the difference in reality--between +the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic--becomes at times almost +as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to students of physics, +whether the scientific “ether” is real or a formula. Every material +phenomenon is consonant with and helps to define this ether, which +permeates and sustains and is all things, which nevertheless is +perceptible to no sense, which is reached only by an intellectual +process. Most minds are disposed to treat this ether as a reality. But +the acutely critical mind insists that what is only so attainable by +inference is not real; it is no more than “a formula that satisfies all +phenomena.” + +But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that +satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + +Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to +believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, +from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and +spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as +yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God’s will is so; the other +that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other +the Good Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, +moves me to do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference +and escapes a risk of self-righteousness. + +I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called “The +Tyranny of Shams,” in which he displays very typically this curious +tendency to a sort of religion with God “blacked out.” His is an +extremely interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman +Catholic priest, and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a +resolution even sterner than Professor Metchnikoff’s, to deny that +anything religious or divine can exist, that there can be any aim +in life except happiness, or any guide but “science.” But--and here +immediately he turns east again--he is careful not to say “individual +happiness.” And he says “Pleasure is, as Epicureans insisted, only +a part of a large ideal of happiness.” So he lets the happiness of +devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens indefinite possibilities of +getting away from any merely materialistic rule of life. And he writes: + + +“In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and +indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness. +Why, they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a thing as a duty to +improve the earth? What is the meaning or purpose of life? Or has it a +purpose? + +“One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of +controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People tell you +that the conflict of science and religion--it would be better to say, +the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions--has robbed life +of its plain significance. The men who, like Tolstoi, seriously urge +this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life. Certainly +modern culture--science, history, philosophy, and art--finds no purpose +in life: that is to say, no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered +by man. A great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine ‘a +series of lucky accidents’--the chance blowing by the wind of certain +chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the first +appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the influences +which have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as +a similar series of lucky accidents. + +“But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there +is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development +of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose +and set up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will +teach us that this choice must be social, not merely individual. In +whatever measure ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal +impulses or attractions, the aim of the race must be a collective aim. I +do not mean an austere demand of self-sacrifice from the individual, +but an adjustment--as genial and generous as possible--of individual +variations for common good. Otherwise life becomes discordant and +futile, and the pain and waste react on each individual. So we raise +again, in the twentieth century, the old question of ‘the greatest +good,’ which men discussed in the Stoa Poikile and the suburban groves +of Athens, in the cool atria of patrician mansions on the Palatine and +the Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and the schools which Omar +Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of the Middle Ages and +the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici.” + + +And again: + + +“The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring +happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above +all the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, +which have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that +height--just as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on +no metaphysic, no sacred legend, no disputable tradition--nothing that +scepticism can corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations +are the fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature.” + + +And again: + + +“The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time +is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of +that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general +social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. +It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the +finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines +it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of +the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, +for these are elemental principles of social life; but it appeals +more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered +children of the race, and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction +of suffering and the creation of happiness. The advance guard of the +race, the men and women in whom mental alertness is associated with fine +feeling, cry that they have reached Pisgah’s slope and in increasing +numbers men and women are pressing on to see if it be really the +Promised Land.” + + +“Pisgah--the Promised Land!” Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if he +were half-way to “Oh! Beulah Land!” and the tambourine. + +That “larger spirit,” we maintain, is God; those “impulses” are the +power of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to +realise fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic +Church, and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured +back to that altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that +preoccupation, and immediately he will begin to realise the presence of +Divinity. + + + +3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + + +It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves +to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that +if their conception of right living falls in so completely with the +conception of God’s service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God, +like the ether of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no +more than an imaginative externalisation of man’s inherent good will. +Why trouble about God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition +a sufficient evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such +benevolent unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those +who have found God? + +The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone upon +his own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting +to his own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral strength. A +certain immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs like a precipice +above him; incalculable temptations open like gulfs beneath his feet. He +has not really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to +whom he can give himself. He is still a masterless man. His exaltation +is self-centred, is priggishness, his fall is unrestrained by any +exterior obligation. His devotion is only the good will in himself, a +disposition; it is a mood that may change. At any moment it may change. +He may have pledged himself to his own pride and honour, but who will +hold him to his bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own +amiable sentiments, his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and +no one watches while he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. He +has no real and living link with other men of good will. + +And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely intellectual +are in no better case than those who deny God altogether. They may have +all the forms of truth and not divinity. The religion of the atheist +with a God-shaped blank at its heart and the persuasion of the +unconverted theologian, are both like lamps unlit. The lit lamp has no +difference in form from the lamp unlit. But the lit lamp is alive and +the lamp unlit is asleep or dead. + +The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the +servant of the true God is this; it is that the latter has experienced +a complete turning away from self. This only difference is all the +difference in the world. It is the realisation that this goodness that +I thought was within me and of myself and upon which I rather prided +myself, is without me and above myself, and infinitely greater and +stronger than I. It is the immortal and I am mortal. It is invincible +and steadfast in its purpose, and I am weak and insecure. It is no +longer that I, out of my inherent and remarkable goodness, out of +the excellence of my quality and the benevolence of my heart, give a +considerable amount of time and attention to the happiness and welfare +of others--because I choose to do so. On the contrary I have come under +a divine imperative, I am obeying an irresistible call, I am a humble +and willing servant of the righteousness of God. That altruism which +Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would have us regard as the goal +and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is really the first simple +commandment in the religious life. + + + +4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + + +Now here is a passage from a book, “Evolution and the War,” by Professor +Metchnikoff’s translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which comes even closer +to our conception of God as an immortal being arising out of man, and +external to the individual man. He has been discussing that well-known +passage of Kant’s: “Two things fill my mind with ever-renewed wonder and +awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them--the starry vault above +me, and the moral law within me.” + +From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this most +definite and interesting statement: + + +“Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel +and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who +dislikes all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the +implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain +as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that +the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It +has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the +work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not +in man, inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his +customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance +are the crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in +a high place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and +fall, but the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations +must be measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the +debasement or perfection of man’s great achievement.” + + +This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that this +book asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we call Him +“Man’s Great Achievement” or “The Son of Man” or the “God of Mankind” or +“God.” So far as the practical and moral ends of life are concerned, it +does not matter how we explain or refuse to explain His presence in our +lives. + +There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is asserted that +GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of self-suppression to +our weakness. + + + +5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + + +Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture +upon Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same +characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of +denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute +Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the +possibility of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite +Being from the idea of God. It is another striking instance of that +obsession of modern minds by merely Christian theology of which I have +already complained. Professor Murray has quoted Mr. Bevan’s phrase for +God, “the Friend behind phenomena,” and he does not seem to realise that +that phrase carries with it no obligation whatever to believe that this +Friend is in control of the phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to +be in control as if it were a matter of course: + + +“We do seem to find,” Professor Murray writes, “not only in all +religions, but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man is +not quite alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours towards +the good by some external help or sympathy. We find it everywhere in the +unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded self-revelations of the +most severe and conscientious Atheists. Now, the Stoics, like many other +schools of thought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. +It was not an absolute proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, +but it was a strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive +belief in the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must +be a good cause for that belief. + +“This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But it +does not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the content of +the belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those +points on which Stoicism, in company with almost all philosophy up to +the present time, has gone astray through not sufficiently realising its +dependence on the human mind as a natural biological product. For it is +very important in this matter to realise that the so-called belief is +not really an intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole +nature. + +“It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise +the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally +unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from +the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see +philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the +Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a +moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it +seems to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old +ineradicable instinct. We are gregarious animals; our ancestors have +been such for countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world as +gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. +Students of animals under domestication have shown us how the habits +of a gregarious creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in +a thousand details by reference to the lost pack which is no longer +there--the pack which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time +he is out walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. +It is a strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the +gregarious animal for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may +be, it may very possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind +phenomena our own yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive +conviction, since they are certainly not founded on either reason or +observation, are in origin the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious +animal to find its herd or its herd-leader in the great spaces between +the stars. + +“At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of.” + + +There the passage and the lecture end. + +I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the reality of +God. + +Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed +solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, +“atheists” so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one’s +own was not the universal disposition of living things. His classical +training disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual +difference. But nearly every animal, and certainly every mentally +considerable animal, begins under parental care, in a nest or a litter, +mates to breed, and is associated for much of its life. Even the great +carnivores do not go alone except when they are old and have done with +the most of life. Every pack, every herd, begins at some point in a +couple, it is the equivalent of the tiger’s litter if that were to +remain undispersed. And it is within the memory of men still living +that in many districts the African lion has with a change of game and +conditions lapsed from a “solitary” to a gregarious, that is to say a +prolonged family habit of life. + +Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher apes, +is an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has passed +within the historical period from a tribal gregariousness to a nearly +cosmopolitan tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. He is not, as +Professor Murray seems to suggest, a solitary LOST gregarious beast. Why +should his desire for God be regarded as the overflow of an unsatisfied +gregarious instinct, when he has home, town, society, companionship, +trade union, state, INCREASINGLY at hand to glut it? Why should +gregariousness drive a man to God rather than to the third-class +carriage and the public-house? Why should gregariousness drive men out +of crowded Egyptian cities into the cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer +in a memorable passage (about the hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is +flatly opposed to Professor Murray, and seems far more plausible when +he declares that the nature of man is insufficiently gregarious. The +parallel with the dog is not a valid one. + +Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the +Friend that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not the +real deception, our belief that we are completely individualised, and +is it not possible that this that Professor Murray calls “instinct” + is really not a vestige but a new thing arising out of our increasing +understanding, an intellectual penetration to that greater being of the +species, that vine, of which we are the branches? Why should not the +soul of the species, many faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like +our own? + +Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other cases +of atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate understanding +of individuation bars the way to at least the intellectual recognition +of the true God. + + + +6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + + +And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent +interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston’s. You will note that while +in this book we use the word “God” to indicate the God of the Heart, +Sir Harry uses “God” for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, which we have +spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word “God” is of late +theological origin; the original identity of the words “good” and “god” + and all the stories of the gods are against him. But Sir Harry takes up +God only to define him away into incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + + +“We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, +assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating +this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of +planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. +We are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is +intended to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out +of incompleteness and misery; and we are entitled to identify the +reactionary forces of brute Nature with the anthropomorphic Devil of +primitive religions, the power of darkness resisting the power of light. +But in these conjectures we must surely come to the conclusion that +the theoretical potency we call ‘God’ makes endless experiments, and +scrap-heaps the failures. Think of the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of +creative energy that went to their differentiation and their well-nigh +incredible physical development. . . . + +“To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and +perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may +seem little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the +cutting, the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as +little remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the +Creative Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA +MEMBRA of perfected life on this planet. . . .” + + +But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God +of man as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of +humanitarianism. Sir Harry’s ideas are much less thoroughly thought out +than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On +that account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ +were simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of +ethics--and yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though +religions were nothing more than ethical movements, and as though +Christianity were merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness +that everything was simply horrid, and so, “Let us instal loving +kindness as a cardinal axiom.” He ignores altogether the fundamental +essential of religion, which is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE +DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE +IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. +He presents a conception of religion relieved of its “nonsense” as the +cheerful self-determination of a number of bright little individuals +(much stirred but by no means overcome by Cosmic Pity) to the Service +of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as outward a thing, it goes as +little into the intimacy of their lives, as though they had after proper +consideration agreed to send a subscription to a Red Cross Ambulance or +take part in a public demonstration against the Armenian Massacres, or +do any other rather nice-spirited exterior thing. This is what he says: + + +“I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the +Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian +ideal and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and +disputable, and ‘mattering not neither here nor there,’ of Christian +theology--a theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of +Christ--and all of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made +immortal in their application by unassailable truth and by the +confirmation of science. An excellent remedy for the nonsense which +still clings about religion may be found in two books: Cotter Monson’s +‘Service of Man,’ which was published as long ago as 1887, and has since +been re-issued by the Rationalist Press Association in its well-known +sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton’s ‘Man and the Bible.’ +Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of the relations +between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade’s ‘Martyrdom of +Man.’” + + +Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a +well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength +in his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the “Service of Man” + is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the +undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE INVISIBLE KING + + +1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + + +The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince growing +in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his service and who +gives salvation from self and mortality only through self-abandonment to +his service, necessarily involves a demand for a complete revision and +fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + +God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and confusions +and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a dark jungle +to a great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a sword. It is plain +that he can admit no divided control of the world he claims. He concedes +nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy there are no human things that +are God’s and others that are Caesar’s. Those of the new thought cannot +render unto God the things that are God’s, and to Caesar the things that +are Caesar’s. Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men’s lives and +direct their destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king +nor Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except +he claim as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his +claim. The steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place for +the sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims “divine right” plays with +the lightning. + +The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or +democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make plain +the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the discovery and +service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts of men, and the +performance of that will, not only in the private life of the believer +but in the acts and order of the state and nation of which he is a part. +I give myself to God not only because I am so and so but because I am +mankind. I become in a measure responsible for every evil in the world +of men. I become a knight in God’s service. I become my brother’s +keeper. I become a responsible minister of my King. I take sides against +injustice, disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, +princes, landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God’s rule +and worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the +world’s affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow-servants +of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast antagonism. + + + +2. THE WILL OF GOD + + +It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem most +arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will relate of +a close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, the aims +of his kingship. And just as they advance no proof whatever of the +existence of God but their realisation of him, so with regard to these +qualities and dispositions they have little argument but profound +conviction. What they say is this; that if you do not feel God then +there is no persuading you of him; we cannot win over the incredulous. +And what they say of his qualities is this; that if you feel God then +you will know, you will realise more and more clearly, that thus and +thus and no other is his method and intention. + +It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full +implications of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it asserted +that the first purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of +knowledge as a means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to +power. For that he must use human eyes and hands and brains. + +And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only beginning +to apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as time goes on. But +it is possible to define the broad outlines of the attainment he seeks. +It is the conquest of death. + +It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the +individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an +undying purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to +threaten our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. God +fights against death in every form, against the great death of the +race, against the petty death of indolence, insufficiency, baseness, +misconception, and perversion. He it is and no other who can deliver us +“from the body of this death.” This is the battle that grows plainer; +this is the purpose to which he calls us out of the animal’s round of +eating, drinking, lusting, quarrelling and laughing and weeping, fearing +and failing, and presently of wearying and dying, which is the +whole life that living without God can give us. And from these great +propositions there follow many very definite maxims and rules of life +for those who serve God. These we will immediately consider. + + + +3. THE CRUCIFIX + + +But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind +of intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and the +vaguer sort of Christianity. There are a number of people closely in +touch with those who have found the new religion who, biased probably +by a dread of too complete a break with Christianity, have adopted a +theogony which is very reminiscent of Gnosticism and of the Paulician, +Catharist, and kindred sects to which allusion has already been made. +He, who is called in this book God, they would call God-the-Son or +Christ, or the Logos; and what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled +Being, they would call God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as +Life, they would call, with a certain disregard of the poor brutes that +perish, Man. And they would assert, what we of the new belief, pleading +our profound ignorance, would neither assert nor deny, that that +Darkness, out of which came Life and God, since it produced them must be +ultimately sympathetic and of like nature with them. And that ultimately +Man, being redeemed and led by Christ and saved from death by him, would +be reconciled with God the Father.* And this great adventurer out of the +hearts of man that we here call God, they would present as the same with +that teacher from Galilee who was crucified at Jerusalem. + + * This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for + him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and + chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the + blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is + an escape from the “inadequate” ideas of the mortal human + personality to the “adequate” and timeless ideas of God. + +Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon this +apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. Firstly, +we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the veiled being nor +about that being’s relations to God and to Life. We do not recognise any +consistent sympathetic possibilities between these outer beings and our +God. Our God is, we feel, like Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And +the accepted figure of Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in +the tone of our worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, +but by fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the +thing that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he +cannot escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross +or chained to be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary +sufferings, like hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in +themselves bring victory. They may be necessary, but they are not +glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched +figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why +hast thou forsaken me?” these things jar with our spirit. We little men +may well fail and repent, but it is our faith that our God does not fail +us nor himself. We cannot accept the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to +a pitiful God. We cannot accept the Resurrection as though it were an +after-thought to a bitterly felt death. Our crucifix, if you must have +a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a foot already torn away from +its nail, and with eyes not downcast but resolute against the sky; a +face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in the surpassing glory of +the struggle and the inflexible will to live and prevail. . . . + +But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible the +wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is courage +beyond any conceivable suffering. + +But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns the +figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the figure of +God, and the crucifix only so far as that stands for divine action. The +figure of Christ crucified, so soon as we think of it as being no +more than the tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man who proclaimed the +loving-kindness of God and the supremacy of God’s kingdom over +the individual life, and who, in the extreme agony of his pain and +exhaustion, cried out that he was deserted, becomes something altogether +distinct from a theological symbol. Immediately that we cease to +worship, we can begin to love and pity. Here was a being of extreme +gentleness and delicacy and of great courage, of the utmost tolerance +and the subtlest sympathy, a saint of non-resistance. . . . + +We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We are +the militant followers of and participators in a militant God. We can +appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle being upon +whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is the remotest +quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is the completest +inversion of his likeness as we know him. A Christianity which shows, +for its daily symbol, Christ risen and trampling victoriously upon a +broken cross, would be far more in the spirit of our worship.* + + * It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a + letter written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that + pertinacious correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, + almost exactly the same sentiments I have here expressed. + “If I could fill the Crucifix with life as you do,” he says, + “I would gladly look on it, but the fallen Head and the + closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of glorified + humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who ‘hath + been crucified,’ who hath passed the trial victoriously and + borne the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this + side of the glory.” + +I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit +in a tract, “The Call of the Kingdom,” by that very able and subtle, +Anglican theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the +vitalising stresses of the war we are winning “faith in Christ as an +heroic leader. We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle that +there is no ground in our picture of Him, for the vision which His +disciple had of Him: ‘His head and His hair were white, as white wool, +white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire: and His feet like +unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and His +voice was as the voice of many waters. And He had in His right hand +seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and +His countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength.’” + +These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how +clearly parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + + + +4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + + +Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite +intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth +and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to +our inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the +chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we +who have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be +equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share +with him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and +clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, +and every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in +ourselves but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment +of his real and visible kingdom throughout the world. + +And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not +merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but +that the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric +of the world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the +village school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market +town, in the mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman’s +house. It means that ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor +is to disfigure our coins and stamps any more; God himself and no +delegate is to be represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters +and our receipts, a perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no +act altogether without significance, no power so humble that it may not +be used for or against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To +realise God in one’s heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, +and the way of his service is neither to pull up one’s life by the +roots nor to continue it in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it +about, to turn everything that there is in it round into his way. + +The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the +abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves, +but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt +to be utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to +keep oneself fit and bright for God’s service, and to increase one’s +knowledge and powers, and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one’s +baser motives, a watch against fear and indolence, against vanity, +against greed and lust, against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To +have found God truly does in itself make God’s service one’s essential +motive, but these evils lurk in the shadows, in the lassitudes and +unwary moments. No one escapes them altogether, there is no need for +tragic moods on account of imperfections. We can no more serve God +without blunders and set-backs than we can win battles without losing +men. But the less of such loss the better. The servant of God must keep +his mind as wide and sound and his motives as clean as he can, just as +an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and muscles as fit and his +hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously evade exercise and +regular washing--of mind as of hands. An incessant watchfulness of +one’s self and one’s thoughts and the soundness of one’s thoughts; +cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and prejudice, +careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; these are +the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to God will, +as a matter of course, set before himself. + + + +5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + + +Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will be +more convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present pursue +the idea of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment he calls +us. This kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all +mankind upon certain divine ends. These, we conceive, are first, +the maintenance of the racial life; secondly, the exploration of the +external being of nature as it is and as it has been, that is to +say history and science; thirdly, that exploration of inherent human +possibility which is art; fourthly, that clarification of thought and +knowledge which is philosophy; and finally, the progressive enlargement +and development of the racial life under these lights, so that God may +work through a continually better body of humanity and through better +and better equipped minds, that he and our race may increase for ever, +working unendingly upon the development of the powers of life and the +mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout the deeps of space. He +sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer ourselves and our world +and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can as yet see nothing, our +imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of our understanding is +the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from us. . . . + +It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality +that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden. . . . + +But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of +this earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives must +fall and our consciences adapt themselves. + +Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost necessarily a +conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. Each believer as he +grasps this natural and immediate consequence of the faith that has come +into his life will form at the same time a Utopian conception of this +world changed in the direction of God’s purpose. The vision will follow +the realisation of God’s true nature and purpose as a necessary +second step. And he will begin to develop the latent citizen of this +world-state in himself. He will fall in with the idea of the world-wide +sanities of this new order being drawn over the warring outlines of the +present, and of men falling out of relationship with the old order and +into relationship with the new. Many men and women are already working +to-day at tasks that belong essentially to God’s kingdom, tasks that +would be of the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; +for example, they are doing or sustaining scientific research or +education or creative art; they are making roads to bring men together, +they are doctors working for the world’s health, they are building +homes, they are constructing machinery to save and increase the powers +of men. . . . + +Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will +change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a little +while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come in chiefly +from the west, to become open and confessed servants of God. This work +that they were doing for ambition, or the love of men or the love of +knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to the work itself, or for +money or honour or country or king, they will realise they are doing for +God and by the power of God. Self-transformation into a citizen of God’s +kingdom and a new realisation of all earthly politics as no more than +the struggle to define and achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, +follow on, without any need for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the +moment when God and the believer meet and clasp one another. + +This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely +fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such general +theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. But to anyone +who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a little from the +obsession of existing but transitory things, it ceases to be a mere +suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly the real future of +mankind. From the phase of “so things should be,” the mind will pass +very rapidly to the realisation that “so things will be.” Towards this +the directive wills among men have been drifting more and more steadily +and perceptibly and with fewer eddyings and retardations, for many +centuries. The purpose of mankind will not be always thus confused and +fragmentary. This dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the +warring tribes and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries +or so ago, draws to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a +metaphor, not a mere spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain +project; it is the thing before us, it is the close and inevitable +destiny of mankind. + +In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading about +the world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears here and +there to-day, like that little twittering of birds which comes before +the dawn, will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In but a few +centuries the whole world will be openly, confessedly, preparing for +the kingdom. In but a few centuries God will have led us out of the dark +forest of these present wars and confusions into the open brotherhood of +his rule. + + + +6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + + +This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation at +thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, partisan, +nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into the coherent +development of the world kingdom of God, provides the form into which +everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will naturally seek to fit +his every thought and activity. The material greeds, the avarice, +fear, rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a disordered world will be +challenged and examined under one general question: “What am I in the +kingdom of God?” + +It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing number +of occupations that belong already to God’s kingdom, research, teaching, +creative art, creative administration, cultivation, construction, +maintenance, and the honest satisfaction of honest practical human +needs. For such people conversion to the intimacy of God means at most +a change in the spirit of their work, a refreshed energy, a clearer +understanding, a new zeal, a completer disregard of gains and praises +and promotion. Pay, honours, and the like cease to be the inducement of +effort. Service, and service alone, is the criterion that the quickened +conscience will recognise. + +Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which service +is mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service is a little +warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by mercenary and +commercial considerations, by some inherent or special degradation of +purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer rest until his life +is readjusted and as far as possible freed from the waste of these base +diversions. For example a scientific investigator, lit and inspired by +great inquiries, may be hampered by the conditions of his professorship +or research fellowship, which exact an appearance of “practical” + results. Or he may be obliged to lecture or conduct classes. He may +be able to give but half his possible gift to the work of his real +aptitude, and that at a sacrifice of money and reputation among +short-sighted but influential contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature +an investigator he will know that the research is what God needs of him. +He cannot continue it at all if he leaves his position, and so he must +needs waste something of his gift to save the rest. But should a poorer +or a humbler post offer him better opportunity, there lies his work for +God. There one has a very common and simple type of the problems that +will arise in the lives of men when they are lit by sudden realisation +of the immediacy of God. + +Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician between +the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one hand, and +the lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy people on the +other. He belongs to a profession that is crippled by a mediaeval code, +a profession which was blind to the common interest of the Public Health +and regarded its members merely as skilled practitioners employed to +“cure” individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of +the profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of +devoted men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as +a whole, broadening out from the frowsy den of the “leech,” with its +crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and +illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing +and economic life of the community. + +And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble of +the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and his +divine impulse on the other. + +The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every decision +that must be made by men and women in these more or less vitiated, but +still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + +The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a man +who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business enterprise +or the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need of manufactures +and that goods should be distributed; land must be administered and +new economic possibilities developed. The drift of things is in the +direction of state ownership and control, but in a great number of +cases the state is not ripe for such undertakings, it commands neither +sufficient integrity nor sufficient ability, and the proprietor of +factory, store, credit or land, must continue in possession, holding as +a trustee for God and, so far as lies in his power, preparing for his +supersession by some more public administration. Modern religion admits +of no facile flights from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort +to the wilderness and sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts +among scorpions in a cave as no better than a deserter in hiding. It +unhesitatingly forbids any rich young man to sell all that he has and +give to the poor. Himself and all that he has must be alike dedicated to +God. + +The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and of +every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes aware of +God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the maximum of +possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the least private +profit. He may set aside a salary for his maintenance; the rest he must +deal with like a zealous public official. And if he perceives that the +affair could be better administered by other hands than his own, then it +is his business to get it into those hands with the smallest delay and +the least profit to himself. . . . + +The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right and +wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has a +RIGHT to his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man is not +justified in drawing the profits from an advantageous agreement nor free +to spend the profits of a speculation as he will. God takes no heed of +savings nor of abstinence. He recognises no right to the “rewards of +abstinence,” no right to any rewards. Those profits and comforts and +consolations are the inducements that dangle before the eyes of the +spiritually blind. Wealth is an embarrassment to the religious, for God +calls them to account for it. The servant of God has no business with +wealth or power except to use them immediately in the service of God. +Finding these things in his hands he is bound to administer them in the +service of God. + +The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged communism +of the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the scribes and +Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and bones and house and +acres, he takes skill and influence and expectations. For all the rest +of your life you are nothing but God’s agent. If you are not prepared +for so complete a surrender, then you are infinitely remote from God. +You must go your way. Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps +you have been desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as +a possession. You have not begun to understand. This that we are +discussing in this book is as yet nothing for you. + + + +7. ADJUSTING LIFE + + +This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this +present world and the discovery and realisation of one’s own place and +work in and for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase in the +development of the believer. He will set about revising and adjusting +his scheme of life, his ways of living, his habits and his relationships +in the light of his new convictions. + +Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain +righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap +only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind +that have brought them to God will already have brought their lives into +a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there +will be someone to whom the self-examination that follows conversion +will reveal an entirely wrong and evil way of living. It may be that the +light has come to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable +routine. Or to someone following some highly profitable and amusing, +but socially useless or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an +advocate at the disposal of any man’s purpose, or an actor or actress +ready to fall in with any theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may +find herself a prostitute or a pet wife, a mere kept instrument of +indulgence. These are lives of prey, these are lives of futility; the +light of God will not tolerate such lives. Here religion can bring +nothing but a severance from the old way of life altogether, a break and +a struggle towards use and service and dignity. + +But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong +the new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the old. +Every sort of experience that has ever come to a human being is in the +self that he brings to God, and there is no reason why a knowledge +of evil ways should not determine the path of duty. No one can better +devise protections against vices than those who have practised them; +none know temptations better than those who have fallen. If a man has +followed an evil trade, it becomes him to use his knowledge of the +tricks of that trade to help end it. He knows the charities it may claim +and the remedies it needs. . . . + +A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of +adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under +contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the opportunity +for examining the relation of an ordinary self-respecting worldly life, +to life under the dispensation of God discovered. A barrister is +usually a man of some energy and ambition, his honour is moulded by +the traditions of an ancient and antiquated profession, instinctively +self-preserving and yet with a real desire for consistency and respect. +As a profession it has been greedy and defensively conservative, but it +has never been shameless nor has it ever broken faith with its own large +and selfish, but quite definite, propositions. It has never for instance +had the shamelessness of such a traditionless and undisciplined class +as the early factory organisers. It has never had the dull incoherent +wickedness of the sort of men who exploit drunkenness and the turf. It +offends within limits. Barristers can be, and are, disbarred. But it is +now a profession extraordinarily out of date; its code of honour derives +from a time of cruder and lower conceptions of human relationship. It +apprehends the State as a mere “ring” kept about private disputations; +it has not begun to move towards the modern conception of the collective +enterprise as the determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its +business as a mere play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or +between men and men. They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer +wrongs, they evade dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and +compensations. The primary business of the law is held to be decision in +these wrangles, and as wrangling is subject to artistic elaboration, the +business of the barrister is the business of a professional wrangler; he +is a bravo in wig and gown who fights the duels of ordinary men because +they are incapable, very largely on account of the complexities of legal +procedure, of fighting for themselves. His business is never to explore +any fundamental right in the matter. His business is to say all that can +be said for his client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said +against his client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain +and the United States of America is the judge, and whose habits and +interests all incline him to disregard the realities of the case in +favour of the points in the forensic game, then adjudicates upon the +contest. . . . + +Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern +conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the world is +openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court will exist only +to adjust the differing views of men as to the manner of their service +to God; the only right of action one man will have against another will +be that he has been prevented or hampered or distressed by the other in +serving God. The idea of the law court will have changed entirely from a +place of dispute, exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The +individual or some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON +GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against +the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of +legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. +. . . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not +otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and +administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity +is one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction +that it was not Christianity that took possession of the Roman empire, +but an imperial adventurer who took possession of an all too complaisant +Christianity. + +Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the religious +from which they arose, it will have become evident that the essential +work of anyone who is conversant with the existing practice and +literature of the law and whose natural abilities are forensic, will lie +in the direction of reconstructing the theory and practice of the law +in harmony with modern conceptions, of making that theory and practice +clear and plain to ordinary men, of reforming the abuses of the +profession by working for the separation of bar and judiciary, for the +amalgamation of the solicitors and the barristers, and the like needed +reforms. These are matters that will probably only be properly set right +by a quickening of conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of +men is the help and service so necessary to the practical establishment +of God’s kingdom, as of men learned and experienced in the law. And +there is no reason why for the present an advocate should not continue +to plead in the courts, provided he does his utmost only to handle cases +in which he believes he can serve the right. Few righteous cases are +ill-served by a frank disposition on the part of lawyer and client +to put everything before the court. Thereby of course there arises a +difficult case of conscience. What if a lawyer, believing his client to +be in the right, discovers him to be in the wrong? He cannot throw up +the case unless he has been scandalously deceived, because so he would +betray the confidence his client has put in him to “see him through.” He +has a right to “give himself away,” but not to “give away” his client +in this fashion. If he has a chance of a private consultation I think he +ought to do his best to make his client admit the truth of the case and +give in, but failing this he has no right to be virtuous on behalf of +another. No man may play God to another; he may remonstrate, but that +is the limit of his right. He must respect a confidence, even if it is +purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that here the barrister is in a +cleft stick, and that he must see the business through according to the +confidence his client has put in him--and afterwards be as sorry as he +may be if an injustice ensues. And also I would suggest a lawyer +may with a fairly good conscience defend a guilty man as if he were +innocent, to save him from unjustly heavy penalties. . . . + +This comparatively full discussion of the barrister’s problem has been +embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical fashion, +just those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in real life. +Religious conviction gives us a general direction, but it stands aside +from many of these entangled struggles in the jungle of conscience. +Practice is often easier than a rule. In practice a lawyer will know +far more accurately than a hypothetical case can indicate, how far he is +bound to see his client through, and how far he may play the keeper of +his client’s conscience. And nearly every day there happens instances +where the most subtle casuistry will fail and the finger of conscience +point unhesitatingly. One may have worried long in the preparation and +preliminaries of the issue, one may bring the case at last into the +final court of conscience in an apparently hopeless tangle. Then +suddenly comes decision. + +The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man states +his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and the special +pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case lies bare and +plain. + + + +8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + + +The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in existing +governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with the +acceptance of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At the +worst Caesar is a usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at the +best he is provisional. Modern casuistry makes no great trouble for the +believing public official. The chief business of any believer is to do +the work for which he is best fitted, and since all state affairs are +to become the affairs of God’s kingdom it is of primary importance that +they should come into the hands of God’s servants. It is scarcely less +necessary to a believing man with administrative gifts that he should be +in the public administration, than that he should breathe and eat. And +whatever oath or the like to usurper church or usurper king has been +set up to bar access to service, is an oath imposed under duress. If it +cannot be avoided it must be taken rather than that a man should become +unserviceable. All such oaths are unfair and foolish things. They +exclude no scoundrels; they are appeals to superstition. Whenever an +opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, the servant of God will +seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he will take it. + +The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of +statement; it is to do as much as one can of God’s work. + + + +9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + + +It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official and +his oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged minister of +religion who finds that faith in the true God has ousted his formal +beliefs. + +This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the intellectual +life of the last hundred years. It has been increasingly difficult for +any class of reading, talking, and discussing people such as are the +bulk of the priesthoods of the Christian churches to escape hearing and +reading the accumulated criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the +popularly accepted story of man’s fall and salvation. Some have no doubt +defeated this universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and +honestly established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the +articles and disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the +creeds they profess and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their +positions in the priesthood. But a great number have neither resisted +the bacillus of criticism nor left the churches to which they are +attached. They have adopted compromises, they have qualified their +creeds with modifying footnotes of essential repudiation; they +have decided that plain statements are metaphors and have undercut, +transposed, and inverted the most vital points of the vulgarly accepted +beliefs. One may find within the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, +Atheists, disbelievers in immortality, attenuators of miracles; there +is scarcely a doubt or a cavil that has not found a lodgment within the +ample charity of the English Establishment. I have been interested to +hear one distinguished Canon deplore that “they” did not identify the +Logos with the third instead of the second Person of the Trinity, and +another distinguished Catholic apologist declare his indifference to +the “historical Jesus.” Within most of the Christian communions one may +believe anything or nothing, provided only that one does not call too +public an attention to one’s eccentricity. The late Rev. Charles Voysey, +for example, preached plainly in his church at Healaugh against the +divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only when he published his +sermons under the provocative title of “The Sling and the Stone,” and +caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that he was +indicted and deprived. + +Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in +which they find themselves are often very plausible. It is probable that +in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious +dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child. +It has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development +and controversy that beliefs have been really sharp. A creed, like a +coin, it may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is +worn, or bears the image of a vanished king. The religious life is a +reality that has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of +the priest or minister is with the religious life and not with the poor +symbols that may indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact +no more than indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain +that the church and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of +religion, that the religious life is sustained not by its propositions +but by its routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of +spiritual things with professional divines, will find this is the +substance of the case for the ecclesiastical sceptic. His church, he +will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where else is truth? +What better formulae are to be found for ineffable things? And +meanwhile--he does good. + +That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess +the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a +matter of ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy +to understand. + +Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. If +a professional religious has any justification at all for his +professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and +greatness of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are not +proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion of what +should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a priest pretend +to do when his primary business is the truth and his method a lie? The +oaths and incidental conformities of men who wish to serve God in the +state are on a different footing altogether from the falsehood and +mischief of one who knows the true God and yet recites to a trustful +congregation, foists upon a trustful congregation, a misleading and +ill-phrased Levantine creed. + +Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of his +temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every ordained +priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that he has truly +realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to repeat his creed +again. His course seems plain and clear. It becomes him to stand up +before the flock he has led in error, and to proclaim the being and +nature of the one true God. He must be explicit to the utmost of his +powers. Then he may await his expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is +sufficient for him to go away silently, making false excuses or none at +all for his retreat. He has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of +his conforming years. + + + +10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + + +Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from God? + +This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it +reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious +interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and the +Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion sweeps past +and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans and Methodists, +in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of God. Arminians seem +merely to have insisted that God has conditioned himself, and by his +own free act left men free to accept or reject salvation. To the realist +type of mind--here as always I use “realist” in its proper sense as +the opposite of nominalist--to the old-fashioned, over-exact and +over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague +and unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of +intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not +Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that +there is no clear line to be drawn between the saved and the lost. +Realists like an exclusive flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a +natural weakness of humanity to be forced into extreme positions by +argument. It is probable, as I have already suggested, that the absolute +attributes of God were forced upon Christianity under the stresses +of propaganda, and it is probable that the theory of a super-human +obstinancy beyond salvation arose out of the irritations natural to +theological debate. It is but a step from the realisation that there are +people absolutely unable or absolutely unwilling to see God as we see +him, to the conviction that they are therefore shut off from God by an +invincible soul blindness. + +It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + +Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there are +those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our experience. +They are people answering to the “hard-hearted,” to the “stiff-necked +generation” of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and even confess +to standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They show themselves +incapable of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty or truth or +goodness. They are altogether remote from intelligent sacrifice. To +every test they betray vileness of texture; they are mean, cold, wicked. +There are people who seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are +ever ready to do harsh and cruel things, whose use for social feeling +is the malignant boycott, and for prosperity, monopolisation and +humiliating display; who seize upon religion and turn it into +persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on the altars of some joyless +vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no use for them, and it is +very easy indeed to step from that persuasion to the belief that God has +no use for them. + +And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the people +with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the few broad +and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we experience, who +lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful conceptions of God, +and are apparently quite incapable of distinguishing between what is +practically and what is spiritually good. + +It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way to +God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which we +of course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper or the +pickpocket or the “smart” woman or the loan-monger or the village +oaf than he is of the swine in the sty. But are we justified in +thus limiting God to the measure of our moral and intellectual +understandings? Because some people seem to me steadfastly and +consistently base or hopelessly and incurably dull and confused, does +it follow that there are not phases, albeit I have never chanced to see +them, of exaltation in the one case and illumination in the other? And +may I not be a little restricting my perception of Good? While I have +been ready enough to pronounce this or that person as being, so far as +I was concerned, thoroughly damnable or utterly dull, I find a curious +reluctance to admit the general proposition which is necessary for +these instances. It is possible that the difference between Arminian and +Calvinist is a difference of essential intellectual temperament rather +than of theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally Arminian as I am +temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the nature of God +to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can only suspect, +and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + +Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you think, +as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and damned, then +I cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other people can be damned. +But that is not to believe that there are people damned at the outset by +their moral and intellectual insufficiency; that is not to make out that +there is a class of essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The +religious life preceded clear religious understanding and extends far +beyond its range. + +In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to true +belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. The +essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. I am +passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own mind, and +to make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and particularly +to other people who may seem to be feeling with me; I do perceive that +error is evil if only because a faith based on confused conceptions +and partial understandings may suffer irreparable injury through the +collapse of its substratum of ideas. I doubt if faith can be complete +and enduring if it is not secured by the definite knowledge of the true +God. Yet I have also to admit that I find the form of my own religious +emotion paralleled by people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy +and no agreement in phrase or formula at all. + +There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling and +this discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as myself +and a convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself in phrases +and images of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs and fountains of +precious blood, a most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom to me, and +expressing itself by shouts, clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and +rhythmic pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object +sought, release from self, and the same end, the end of identification +with the immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. +I see God indubitably present in these excitements, and I see +personalities I could easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for +spiritual understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. +One may be led into the absurdest underestimates of religious +possibilities if one estimates people only coldly and in the light of +everyday life. There is a sub-intellectual religious life which, very +conceivably, when its utmost range can be examined, excludes nothing +human from religious cooperation, which will use any words to its tune, +which takes its phrasing ready-made from the world about it, as it takes +the street for its temple, and yet which may be at its inner point in +the directest contact with God. Religion may suffer from aphasia and +still be religion; it may utter misleading or nonsensical words and yet +intend and convey the truth. The methods of the Salvation Army are older +than doctrinal Christianity, and may long survive it. Men and women may +still chant of Beulah Land and cry out in the ecstasy of salvation; the +tambourine, that modern revival of the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, +may still stir dull nerves to a first apprehension of powers and a call +beyond the immediate material compulsion of life, when the creeds of +Christianity are as dead as the lore of the Druids. + +The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies may +be accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release among types +and strata that by the standards of a trained and explicit intellectual, +may seem spiritually hopeless. It is not necessary to imagine the whole +world critical and lucid in order to imagine the whole world unified in +religious sentiment, comprehending the same phrases and coming together +regardless of class and race and quality, in the worship and service +of the true God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than +hieratic tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head +grows clear the body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of +men modern religion says, “This is the God it has always been in your +nature to apprehend.” + + + +11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + + +Now that we are discussing the general question of individual conduct, +it will be convenient to take up again and restate in that relationship, +propositions already made very plainly in the second and third chapters. +Here there are several excellent reasons for a certain amount of +deliberate repetition. . . . + +All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with +religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a part +in most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern faith. Let +us be as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned by the health and +fitness and vigour of his servants; we owe him our best and utmost; but +he has no special concern and no special preferences or commandments +regarding sexual things. + +Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he +welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in +adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand between +him and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity of the creeds, +in this as in so many respects, does not rise to the level of its +founder, and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as though the name +of Christ had not been ascendant for nineteen centuries, that sex is +a secondary thing to religion, and sexual status of no account in +the presence of God. It follows quite logically that God does not +discriminate between man and woman in any essential things. We leave our +individuality behind us when we come into the presence of God. Sex is +not disavowed but forgotten. Just as one’s last meal is forgotten--which +also is a difference between the religious moment of modern faith and +certain Christian sacraments. You are a believer and God is at hand +to you; heed not your state; reach out to him and he is there. In the +moment of religion you are human; it matters not what else you are, +male or female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or Gentile, bond or free. It +is AFTER the moment of religion that we become concerned about our state +and the manner in which we use ourselves. + +We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual +treatment of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the +king of the whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and all +things. He is not particularly concerned about any aspect, because he is +concerned about every aspect. We have to make the best use of ourselves +for his kingdom; that is our rule of life. That rule means neither +painful nor frantic abstinences nor any forced way of living. Purity, +cleanliness, health, none of these things are for themselves, they are +for use; none are magic, all are means. The sword must be sharp and +clean. That does not mean that we are perpetually to sharpen and clean +it--which would weaken and waste the blade. The sword must neither be +drawn constantly nor always rusting in its sheath. Those who have had +the wits and soul to come to God, will have the wits and soul to find +out and know what is waste, what is vanity, what is the happiness that +begets strength of body and spirit, what is error, where vice begins, +and to avoid and repent and recoil from all those things that degrade. +These are matters not of the rule of life but of the application +of life. They must neither be neglected nor made disproportionally +important. + +To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It +is difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can +be very fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also +linked to God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and +the changes of years they can be held steadfast by his undying +steadfastness. But it has been felt by many deep-feeling people that +there is so much kindred between the love and trust of husband and wife +and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to consider the +former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that close love of mated +man and woman, they are so intent upon its permanence and completeness +and to lift the dear relationship out of the ruck of casual and +transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it were, into the very +presence and assent of God. There are many who dream and desire that +they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more who would +fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest desire to +make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the world +the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of such +a sacramental union. + +There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only +after years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by +vows and promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and +spirit; and it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it, +and God. And the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like +the love of God, is, even then, not the relationship of the man and +woman as man and woman but the comradeship and trust and mutual help +and pity that joins them. No doubt that from the mutual necessities of +bodily love and the common adventure, the necessary honesties and helps +of a joint life, there springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and +best of human companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of +mortal comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary +coming together and pairing off of men and women is in itself divine or +sacramental or anything of the sort. Being in love is a condition that +may have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part +an experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often +love only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is +greed, it is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, +it is the instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is +adventure, it is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores ‘lovers’ +meet and part. Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God in +themselves or others. + +Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no reason +why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness should be +made an obligation upon all men and women who are attracted by one +another, nor why it should be woven into the essentials of religion. +For women much more than for men is this confusion dangerous, lest a +personal love should shape and dominate their lives instead of God. “He +for God only; she for God in him,” phrases the idea of Milton and of +ancient Islam; it is the formula of sexual infatuation, a formula quite +easily inverted, as the end of Goethe’s Faust (“The woman soul leadeth +us upward and on”) may witness. The whole drift of modern religious +feeling is against this exaggeration of sexual feeling, these moods of +sexual slavishness, in spiritual things. Between the healthy love +of ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of God, there is +an essential contrast and opposition in this, that preference, +exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of the former +and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is the +intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the +latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It +may be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest +unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and +romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they +have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved +for God and a devotion that is normally evoked only by little children +in their mother’s heart. It is not the way between most of the men and +women one meets in this world. + +But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is nothing +else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + + + +1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + + +If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain and +read Metchnikoff’s “Nature of Man,” he will find there an interesting +summary of the biological facts that bear upon and destroy the delusion +that there is such a thing as individual perfection, that there is even +ideal perfection for humanity. With an abundance of convincing +instances Professor Metchnikoff demonstrates that life is a system of +“disharmonies,” capable of no perfect way, that there is no “perfect” + dieting, no “perfect” sexual life, no “perfect” happiness, no “perfect” + conduct. He releases one from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption +that there is even an ideal “perfection” in organic life. He sweeps out +of the mind with all the confidence and conviction of a physiological +specialist, any idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable +perfect man. It is in the nature of every man to fall short at every +point from perfection. From the biological point of view we are as +individuals a series of involuntary “tries” on the part of an imperfect +species towards an unknown end. + +Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. +We are disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to the +defects of our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our teeth or +to those vestigial structures of our body that endanger our physical +welfare. Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not an inch +to our spiritual and moral stature. + + + +2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + + +Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by the +term “damnation,” in the light of this view of human reality. Most of +the great world religions are as clear as Professor Metchnikoff that +life in the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and in most cases they +supply a more or less myth-like explanation, they declare that evil is +one side of the conflict between Ahriman and Ormazd, or that it is the +punishment of an act of disobedience, of the fall of man and world alike +from a state of harmony. Their case, like his, is that THIS world is +damned. + +We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this +world there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after death, +so nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear to be +an exploit of theory; they have a superadded appearance even in the +Christian system; the same common tendency to superlatives and absolutes +that makes men ashamed to admit that God is finite, makes them seek to +enhance the merits of their Saviour by the device of everlasting fire. +Conquest over the sorrow of life and the fear of death do not seem to +them sufficient for Christ’s glory. + +Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the +universe as something derived deductively from the past to a conception +of it as something gathering itself adventurously towards the future, +involves a release from the supposed necessity to tell a story and +explain why. Instead comes the inquiry, “To what end?” We can say +without mental discomfort, these disharmonies are here, this damnation +is here--inexplicably. We can, without any distressful inquiry into +ultimate origins, bring our minds to the conception of a spontaneous and +developing God arising out of those stresses in our hearts and in the +universe, and arising to overcome them. Salvation for the individual +is escape from the individual distress at disharmony and the individual +defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. And damnation can be nothing +more and nothing less than the failure or inability or disinclination to +make that escape. + +Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for salvation +has crept at a number of points into contemporary religious thought. It +was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the damned go to their own hells +of their own accord. It underlies a queer poem, “Simpson,” by that +interesting essayist upon modern Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which +I have recently read. Simpson dies and goes to hell--it is rather like +the Cromwell Road--and approves of it very highly, and then and then +only is he completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is +certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock’s idea. It is his definition +of damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is damnation. It is +surrender to limitation; it is acquiescence in “disharmony”; it is +making peace with that enemy against whom God fights for ever. + +(But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for ever +remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous chapter, +a quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me from the +Calvinistic conclusion of Mr. Brock’s satire.) + + + +3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + + +Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by +nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, as +we have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is an +incident. One is an essential and the other an incidental separation +from God. It is possible to sin without being damned; and to be +damned is to be in a state when sin scarcely matters, like ink upon a +blackamoor. You cannot have questions of more or less among absolute +things. + +It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as +the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always +in touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever +have any motive again that is not also God’s motive. Then one +finds oneself caught unawares by a base impulse. We discover +that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous selves, the +unincorporated and warring elements that seemed at first altogether +absent from the synthesis of conversion. We are tripped up by +forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by tricks of appearance. +There come dull patches of existence; those mysterious obliterations of +one’s finer sense that are due at times to the little minor poisons one +eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill-health and bodily disorder, or +one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of emotion, brewed deep in +the animal being and released by any trifling accident, such as personal +jealousy or lust, or one is relaxed by contentment into vanity. +All these rebel forces of our ill-coordinated selves, all these +“disharmonies,” of the inner being, snatch us away from our devotion to +God’s service, carry us off to follies, offences, unkindness, waste, and +leave us compromised, involved, and regretful, perplexed by a hundred +difficulties we have put in our own way back to God. + +This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God can +help us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such reparation +as we can, to begin the battle again further back and lower down. From +God comes the power to anticipate the struggle with one’s rebel self, +and to resist and prevail over it. + + + +4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + + +An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + +It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several +lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper +in these institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or +selected in some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go out +to their addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and as the +author of various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that is, to any +one much forced back upon reading, the writer is particularly accessible +to this type of correspondent. The letters come, some manifesting +a hopeless disorder that permits of no reply, but some being the +expression of minds overlaid not at all offensively by a web of fantasy, +and some (and these are the more touching ones and the ones that most +concern us now) as sanely conceived and expressed as any letters could +be. They are written by people living lives very like the lives of us +who are called “sane,” except that they lift to a higher excitement and +fall to a lower depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or +melancholia slip the leash of mental consistency altogether and take +abnormal forms. They tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the safer +ways of mediocrity do but glimpse under the influence of drugs, or in +dreams and rare moments of controllable extravagance. Then the insane +become “glorious,” or they become murderous, or they become suicidal. +All these letter-writers in confinement have convinced their +fellow-creatures by some extravagance that they are a danger to +themselves or others. + +The letters that come from such types written during their sane +intervals, are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware--I think +they should know--of the offences or possibilities that justify their +incarceration, write with a certain resentment at their position; others +are entirely acquiescent, but one or two complain of the neglect of +friends and relations. But all are as manifestly capable of religion and +of the religious life as any other intelligent persons during the +lucid interludes that make up nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . +Suppose now one of these cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes +the form of some cruel, disgusting, or destructive disposition that may +become at times overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with +sinful tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that +the mania which defines his position must be the primary if not the +cardinal business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with that +is different not in kind but merely in degree from the problem of +lusts, vanities, and weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It is an +unconquered tract, a great rebel province in his being, which refuses to +serve God and tries to prevent him serving God, and succeeds at times in +wresting his capital out of his control. But his relationship to that +is the same relationship as ours to the backward and insubordinate +parishes, criminal slums, and disorderly houses in our own private +texture. + +It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only the +better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered disposition +in him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is obliged to be +the keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His beast gets loose. +His only resort is to warn those about him when he feels that jangling +or excitement of the nerves which precedes its escapes, to limit its +range, to place weapons beyond its reach. And there are plenty of human +beings very much in his case, whose beasts have never got loose or have +got caught back before their essential insanity was apparent. And there +are those uncertifiable lunatics we call men and women of “impulse” + and “strong passions.” If perhaps they have more self-control than the +really mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent +being falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than +the obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; +nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the +sedulous preparation of defences and palliatives against the return of +the storm. + +This discussion of the lunatic’s case gives us indeed, usefully coarse +and large, the lines for the treatment of every human weakness by the +servants of God. A “weakness,” just like the lunatic’s mania, becomes a +particular charge under God, a special duty for the person it affects. +He has to minimise it, to isolate it, to keep it out of mischief. If he +can he must adopt preventive measures. . . . + +These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our +usefulness to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, +they wound our self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who +would trust us, they discredit the faith we profess. If they break +through and break through again it is natural and proper that men and +women should cease to believe in our faith, cease to work with us or to +meet us frankly. . . . Our sins do everything evil to us and through us +except separate us from God. + +Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a power. +Here God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of God in his +heart can defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and undaunted +after a hundred falls, escape from the grip of lusts and revenges, make +head against despair, thrust back the very onset of madness. He is still +the same man he was before he came to God, still with his libidinous, +vindictive, boastful, or indolent vein; but now his will to prevail +over those qualities can refer to an exterior standard and an external +interest, he can draw upon a strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + + + +5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + + +But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found God. +You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment you truly +repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation as is possible +there remains no barrier between you and God. Directly you cease to hide +or deny or escape, and turn manfully towards the consequences and the +setting of things right, you take hold again of the hand of God. Though +you sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest +of you. Nothing but utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off +from God. + +There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that it +can shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you but lift +up your head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness and cry to +him, God is there, God will not fail you. A convicted criminal, frankly +penitent, and neither obdurate nor abject, whatever the evil of his +yesterdays, may still die well and bravely on the gallows to the glory +of God. He may step straight from that death into the immortal being of +God. + +This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. +There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can +stand between God and man. + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + + + +1. THE WORLD DAWN + + +As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new +religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations +are still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the +continuance of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. +There are many signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be +coming as swiftly as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may +seem at present as though nothing very much were happening, except for +the fact that the old familiar constellations of theology have become +a little pallid and lost something of their multitude of points. But +nothing fades of itself. The deep stillness of the late night is broken +by a stirring, and the morning star of creedless faith, the last and +brightest of the stars, the star that owes its light to the coming sun +is in the sky. + +There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir +before a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the +bluster of the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God +without any reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. The +Deists and Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never did that. +Their “Supreme Being” repudiated nothing. He was merely the whittled +stump of the Trinity. It is in the last few decades that the western +mind has slipped loose from this absolutist conception of God that has +dominated the intelligence of Christendom at least, for many centuries. +Almost unconsciously the new thought is taking a course that will lead +it far away from the moorings of Omnipotence. It is like a ship that +has slipped its anchors and drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and +vanishing stars, out to the open sea. . . . + + + +2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + + +In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this renascent +faith. + +For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief in +an infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds trained +under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which have hitherto +been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between pseudo-Christian +religion or denial, but also it opens the way towards the completest +understanding and sympathy and participation with the kindred movements +for release and for an intensification of the religious life, that are +going on outside the sphere of the Christian tradition and influence +altogether. Allusion has already been made to the sympathetic devotional +poetry of Rabindranath Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism +parallel with and assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + +It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is +entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an evil +entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is too easily +assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with renunciation, not +merely of self but of being, with the escape from all effort of any sort +into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed neither the spirit of China nor +of Islam nor of the every-day life of any people in the world. It is not +the spirit of the Sikh nor of these newer developments of Hindu thought. +It has never been the spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia +seem disposed to give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as +Europeans, do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we +can live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain +by escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not +a nation nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at this +moment by the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of God. This +is not an age of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in all the world +besides. + +Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that +which ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are being +thrust aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the spirit and +intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a heart-searching +Dialogue of the Dead, “How we settled our religions for ever and ever,” + between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and one of Nizam-al-Mulk’s +tame theologians. They would be drawn together by the same tribulations; +they would be in the closest sympathy against the temerity of the +moderns; they would have a common courtliness. The Quran is but little +read by Europeans; it is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that +it does not contain; there is much confusion in people’s minds between +its text and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its +followers; in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it has +chiefly to tell of is the leadership of one individualised militant God +who claims the rule of the whole world, who favours neither rank nor +race, who would lead men to righteousness. It is much more free from +sacramentalism, from vestiges of the ancient blood sacrifice, and its +associated sacerdotalism, than Christianity. The religion that +will presently sway mankind can be reached more easily from that +starting-point than from the confused mysteries of Trinitarian theology. +Islam was never saddled with a creed. With the very name “Islam” + (submission to God) there is no quarrel for those who hold the new +faith. . . . + +All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the old +beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, its +Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its “religion without theology,” its +attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to that +living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human mind almost +instinctively insists. . . . + +It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the +same God. + +So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and incidental +and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective to-day, may +be and most probably will be, in quite a few years a great flood +of religious unanimity pouring over and changing all human affairs, +sweeping away the old priesthoods and tabernacles and symbols and +shrines, the last crumb of the Orphic victim and the last rag of the +Serapeum, and turning all men about into one direction, as the ships and +houseboats swing round together in some great river with the uprush of +the tide. . . . + + + +3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + + +Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and identities +of the revived religion that has returned to them, certain questions +of organisation and assembly are being discussed. Every new religious +development is haunted by the precedents of the religion it replaces, +and it was only to be expected that among those who have recovered their +faith there should be a search for apostles and disciples, an attempt to +determine sources and to form original congregations, especially among +people with European traditions. + +These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are +imitative. This time there has been no revelation here or there; there +is no claim to a revelation but simply that God has become visible. Men +have thought and sought until insensibly the fog of obsolete theology +has cleared away. There seems no need therefore for special teachers +or a special propaganda, or any ritual or observances that will seem +to insist upon differences. The Christian precedent of a church +is particularly misleading. The church with its sacraments and its +sacerdotalism is the disease of Christianity. Save for a few doubtful +interpolations there is no evidence that Christ tolerated either blood +sacrifices or the mysteries of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses +were superadded after his martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a +gospel; he sent out not medicine men but apostles. + +No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They become +naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each will be +disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour’s attention to what +he sees. The necessary elements of religion could be written on a +post card; this book, small as it is, bulks large not by what it tells +positively but because it deals with misconceptions. We may (little +doubt have I that we do) need special propagandas and organisations to +discuss errors and keep back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free +speech and restrain the enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want +a church to keep our faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for +that there is no need for orthodoxies and controlling organisations of +statement. It is for each man to follow his own impulse, and to speak to +his like in his own fashion. + +Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name +of the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge of +religion. + +The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation +in dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the +unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by +robes and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom +Christ detested and denounced, is full of warning against the dangers of +a church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the material needs +of men, for the draining of towns, the marshalling of traffic, the +collecting of eggs, and the carrying of letters, the distribution +of bread, the notification of measles, for hygiene and economics and +suchlike affairs. The better we organise such things, the freer and +better equipped we leave men’s minds for nobler purposes, for those +adventures and experiments towards God’s purpose which are the reality +of life. But all organisations must be watched, for whatever is +organised can be “captured” and misused. Repentance, moreover, is the +beginning and essential of the religious life, and organisations (acting +through their secretaries and officials) never repent. God deals +only with the individual for the individual’s surrender. He takes no +cognisance of committees. + +Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are most +mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together is to +purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to strengthen one’s +sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of mankind. Before you +know where you are you will have exchanged the spirit of God for ESPRIT +DE CORPS. You will have reinvented the SYMBOL; you will have begun to +keep anniversaries and establish sacramental ceremonies. The disposition +to form cliques and exclude and conspire against unlike people is all +too strong in humanity, to permit of its formal encouragement. Even such +organisation as is implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living +faith coagulates as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so +much as a definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for +worship and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of little +manifest good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and place for God to +irradiate your soul. + +All these are very valid objections to the church-forming disposition. + + + +4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + + +Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out about +God. They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + +Why should they not shout and share? + +Let them express all that they desire to express in their own fashion +by themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. Let them shout +chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a gang if so they +can work the better. But let them guard themselves against the idea +that they can have God particularly or exclusively with them in any such +undertaking. Or that so they can express God rather than themselves. + +That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the idea +of a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of altars, +away from the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical cannibalism, +beyond the sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the modern spirit holds +that religion cannot be organised or any intermediary thrust between God +and man, that does not preclude infinite possibilities of organisation +and collective action UNDER God and within the compass of religion. +There is no reason why religious men should not band themselves the +better to attain specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, +there is no objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not +against subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations +that may claim to be comprehensive. + +For example there is no reason why one should not--and in many cases +there are good reasons why one should--organise or join associations +for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass very +readily into propaganda. + +Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves and +to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not merely prayer +but formal prayer and the support of others, praying in unison. The +writer does not understand this desire or need for collective prayer +very well, but there are people who appear to do so and there is no +reason why they should not assemble for that purpose. And there is +no doubt that divine poetry, divine maxims, religious thought +finely expressed, may be heard, rehearsed, collected, published, and +distributed by associations. The desire for expression implies a sort +of assembly, a hearer at least as well as a speaker. And expression has +many forms. People with a strong artistic impulse will necessarily want +to express themselves by art when religion touches them, and many arts, +architecture and the drama for example, are collective undertakings. I +do not see why there should not be, under God, associations for building +cathedrals and suchlike great still places urgent with beauty, into +which men and women may go to rest from the clamour of the day’s +confusions; I do not see why men should not make great shrines and +pictures expressing their sense of divine things, and why they should +not combine in such enterprises rather than work to fill heterogeneous +and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival and religious +clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly bring with it a +great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, and writings of +all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying places, temples and +retreats, the creation of pictures and sculptures. It is not necessary +to have priestcraft and an organised church for such ends. Such +enrichments of feeling and thought are part of the service of God. + +And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities +for research in pure science; associations for the teaching and +simplification of languages; associations for promoting and watching +education; associations for the discussion of political problems and +the determination of right policies. In all these ways men may multiply +their use by union. Only when associations seek to control things +of belief, to dictate formulae, restrict religious activities or the +freedom of religious thought and teaching, when they tend to subdivide +those who believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, do they become +antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + + + +5. THE STATE IS GOD’S INSTRUMENT + + +Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and +immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow +that religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed +essential to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round +world and all mankind, that we should see in every government, great +and small, from the council of the world-state that is presently coming, +down to the village assembly, the instrument of God’s practical control. +Religion which is free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to +a perpetual unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of +the whole organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there +will be no church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state +is God’s church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you +leave conscience and speech and writing and teaching about divine things +absolutely free, and that you try to set no nets about God. + +The world is God’s and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and +we find our freedom in him. + + + +THE ENVOY + + +So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I +believe to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and +spiritual confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It is a +statement and record; not a theory. There is nothing in all this that +has been invented or constructed by the writer; I have been but scribe +to the spirit of my generation; I have at most assembled and put +together things and thoughts that I have come upon, have transferred the +statements of “science” into religious terminology, rejected obsolescent +definitions, and re-coordinated propositions that had drifted into +opposition. Thus, I see, ideas are developing, and thus have I written +them down. It is a secondary matter that I am convinced that this trend +of intelligent opinion is a discovery of truth. The reader is told of my +own belief merely to avoid an affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + +The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing and +disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many different +schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is one that has +been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in the work of one I +am happy to write of as my friend and master, that very great American, +the late William James. It was an idea that became increasingly +important to him towards the end of his life. And it is the most +releasing idea in the system. + +Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of these +present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to what is +called Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile Deism of the +eighteenth century, of “votre Etre supreme” who bored the friends of +Robespierre, was a sterile thing, it has little relation to these modern +developments, it conceived of God as an infinite Being of no particular +character whereas God is a finite being of a very especial character. On +the other hand men and women who have set themselves, with unavoidable +theological preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual +teachings and quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that +have interwoven insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a +curious modernity about very many of Christ’s recorded sayings. Revived +religion has also, no doubt, been the receiver of many religious +bankruptcies, of Positivism for example, which failed through its bleak +abstraction and an unspiritual texture. Religion, thus restated, must, +I think, presently incorporate great sections of thought that are still +attached to formal Christianity. The time is at hand when many of the +organised Christian churches will be forced to define their positions, +either in terms that will identify them with this renascence, or that +will lead to the release of their more liberal adherents. Its probable +obligations to Eastern thought are less readily estimated by a European +writer. + +Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the privilege +and possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it is appearing +simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a crystallising +substance appears here and there in a super-saturated solution. It is +a process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. It needs no other +guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but freedom, free speech, +and honest statement. Out of the most mixed and impure solutions a +growing crystal is infallibly able to select its substance. The diamond +arises bright, definite, and pure out of a dark matrix of structureless +confusion. + +This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the +advent and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no +authorities, no teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and +struggle among the other things; simply it grows clear. There will be +no putting an end to it. It arrives inevitably, and it will continue +to separate itself out from confusing ideas. It becomes, as it were the +Koh-i-noor; it is a Mountain of Light, growing and increasing. It is an +all-pervading lucidity, a brightness and clearness. It has no head to +smite, no body you can destroy; it overleaps all barriers; it breaks +out in despite of every enclosure. It will compel all things to orient +themselves to it. + +It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be +here or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the day +comes to the ships that put to sea. + +It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1046 *** diff --git a/1046-h/1046-h.htm b/1046-h/1046-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90de157 --- /dev/null +++ b/1046-h/1046-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4204 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + God the Invisible King, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1046 ***</div> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by H. G. Wells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>GOD THE INVISIBLE KING</b></big> </a> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER THE FIRST </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER THE SECOND </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THE THIRD </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER THE FOURTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER THE FIFTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER THE SIXTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER THE SEVENTH </a> + </td> + <td> + THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION<br /> <br /> HERESIES; OR THE THINGS + THAT GOD IS NOT<br /> <br /> THE LIKENESS OF GOD<br /> <br /> THE RELIGION + OF ATHEISTS<br /> <br /> THE INVISIBLE KING<br /> <br /> MODERN IDEAS OF + SIN AND DAMNATION<br /> <br /> THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious + belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is not, + indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound belief in + a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its statements that need + shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the expression of a faith + different from and perhaps in several particulars opposed to his own. The + writer will be found to be sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. + Nevertheless it is well to prepare the prospective reader for statements + that may jar harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to + warn him at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no + vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas very + widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable occasion of trouble + forthwith. An issue upon which this book will be found particularly + uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that + the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly crystallised the controversies of + two centuries and formulated the creed upon which all the existing + Christian churches are based, was one of the most disastrous and one of + the least venerable of all religious gatherings, and he holds that the + Alexandrine speculations which were then conclusively imposed upon + Christianity merit only disrespectful attention at the present time. There + you have a chief possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any + awe for what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that + undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory + in this connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, + because he believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the + way of those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of + exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at + the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing + the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from among + the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to storms of + theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an ineffable mystery + and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on at their own risk. + This is a religious book written by a believer, but so far as their + beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more sceptical and more + antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer cannot tell. He is not + simply denying their God. He is declaring that there is a living God, + different altogether from that Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. + The spirit of this book is like that of a missionary who would only too + gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian divinity of shark’s teeth and + painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as + “begotten of the Father before all worlds” are no better than intellectual + shark’s teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of that + missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is zealous to + liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that stands between man and + God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds with his matter. + </p> + <p> + His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and + because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. + </p> + <p> + In a previous book, “First and Last Things” (Constable and Co.), he has + stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought as + clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that is, seems + to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and individual. The + antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the opposition of the One + and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these + oppositions express a certain structural and essential duality in the + activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition of that duality + ensue great masses of misconception. That was the substance of “First and + Last Things.” In this present book there is no further attack on + philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we work at a less + fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and religious ideas. But + just as the writer was inclined to attribute a whole world of disputation + and inexactitudes to confused thinking about the exact value of classes + and terms, so here he is disposed to think that interminable controversies + and conflicts arise out of a confusion of intention due to a double + meaning of the word “God”; that the word “God” conveys not one idea or set + of ideas, but several essentially different ideas, incompatible one with + another, and falling mainly into one or other of two divergent groups; and + that people slip carelessly from one to the other of these groups of ideas + and so get into ultimately inextricable confusions. + </p> + <p> + The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that + preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially a + struggle—obscured, of course, by many complexities—to + reconcile and get into a relationship these two separate main series of + God-ideas. + </p> + <p> + Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two antagonistic + typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by speaking of one of + them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the other as God-as-Christ or + the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; the other is the Inmost God. + The first idea was perhaps developed most highly and completely in the God + of Spinoza. It is a conception of God tending to pantheism, to an idea of + a comprehensive God as ruling with justice rather than affection, to a + conception of aloofness and awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, + which is opposed to this idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human + heart. The writer would suggest that the great outline of the theological + struggles of that phase of civilisation and world unity which produced + Christianity, was a persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two + different ideas of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God + of Nature accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the + former into a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of + stars and flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no + finer metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the + trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard + the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical + metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of + intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + </p> + <p> + And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and inhumanity, + which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, of an Infinite + God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a Holy Spirit, as + something proceeding from him, as something bridging the great gulf, a + Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the human + understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian Trinity + that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had saturated + the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in unity, are + probably the realities that account for the Third Person of the Christian + Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the discussions that + shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated by such natural and + fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, of course, complicated from + the outset; and particularly were they complicated by the identification + of the man Jesus with the theological Christ, by materialistic + expectations of his second coming, by materialistic inventions about his + “miraculous” begetting, and by the morbid speculations about virginity and + the like that arose out of such grossness. They were still further + complicated by the idea of the textual inspiration of the scriptures, + which presently swamped thought in textual interpretation. That swamping + came very early in the development of Christianity. The writer of St. + John’s gospel appears still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, + but Origen is already hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of + St. John’s gospel was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He + was emasculated mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He + quotes; his predecessor thinks. + </p> + <p> + But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of + early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition of + a position. The writer’s position here in this book is, firstly, complete + Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, entire faith + in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is the key of his + book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term God. He uses the + word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, and he uses the term + the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the universe, and he + declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in any comprehensible + terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living reality in our lives + who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking from the point of view + of practical religion, he is restricting and defining the word God, as + meaning only the personal God of mankind, he is restricting it so as to + exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence from our religious thought + and leave nothing but the essentials of the religious life. + </p> + <p> + Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an Arian + or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book acceptable + to them if they will read “the Christ God” where the writer has written + “God.” They will then differ from him upon little more than the question + whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality between the + Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their Creator God. This the + orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many pre-Nicaeans and many + heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its exact contrary. The + Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with the Manichaeans, that + the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The Christ God was his + antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. And passing beyond + Christian theology altogether a clue can still be found to many problems + in comparative theology in this distinction between the Being of Nature + (cf. Kant’s “starry vault above”) and the God of the heart (Kant’s “moral + law within”). The idea of an antagonism seems to have been cardinal in the + thought of the Essenes and the Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, + too, Buddhism seems to be “antagonistic.” On the other hand, the Moslem + teaching and modern Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the + two; God the creator is altogether and without distinction also God the + King of Mankind. Christianity stands somewhere between such complete + identification and complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude + between Father and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of + the Old Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great + religions of the world between identification, complete separation, + equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that + these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in + the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these matters. He + believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to salvation. He + believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions upon these + points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials of religion. + The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and exclusively with the + God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, and as the opinion which + seems most expressive of modern thought, that there is no reason to + suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or malignant towards men. But + if the reader believes that God is Almighty and in every way Infinite the + practical outcome is not very different. For the purposes of human + relationship it is impossible to deny that God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, + as struggling and taking a part against evil. + </p> + <p> + The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely + extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this + book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in + such speculations and disputes. + </p> + <p> + Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that + is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., 1), + nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It is + discussed in “First and Last Things,” Book IV, 4.] He omits this question + because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon the + essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the + relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is a + question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether we + are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of or a + rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of + salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of + consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and in the + world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect + righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal + death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite + for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is + identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value + than the snows of yester-year. + </p> + <p> + H. G. W. + </p> + <p> + Dunmow, May, 1917. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST + </h2> + <h3> + THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + </h3> + <p> + 1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + </p> + <p> + Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an + exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago + and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, + and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the new + belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, to trace + how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman world. But + when a religion has been interrogated it has always had hitherto a tale of + beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that + is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It + is the Truth, its believers declare; it has always been here; it has + always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps plainer + than it was and to more people—that is all. + </p> + <p> + It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those who + hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. Some, + catching at a phrase of Huxley’s, speak of it as Christianity without + Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, as a + matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed to any + belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and the + imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a + parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far + more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of that + the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. + </p> + <p> + This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the + opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme + neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect of + Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar and emotions + of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic Trinitarians stuffed + their fingers in their ears in affected horror at the arguments of old + Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity was established as the + essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those three centuries, the + centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest martyrdoms, + Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has to be noted + that a large majority of those who possess and repeat the Christian creeds + have come into the practice so insensibly from unthinking childhood, that + only in the slightest way do they realise the nature of the statements to + which they subscribe. They will speak and think of both Christ and God in + ways flatly incompatible with the doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, + theoretically, the entire fabric of all the churches rests. They will show + themselves as frankly Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been + washed out of the world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents + of blood. But whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters + may be, there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to + give Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. + Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, whatever + the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its decay. The + renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and sufficient in + many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. But it is so + coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt to state the + shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs and imperatives + and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, philosophical, and + agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. + </p> + <p> + The writer’s sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he + speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist nor + Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, + therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as + fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon + with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has + found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing + independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been + people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, + French, people brought up in a “Catholic atmosphere,” Positivists, + Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable + as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon + parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also + traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be + heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at + hand. + </p> + <p> + 2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any + recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it + worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with the + plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are still + carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity dissolve + away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor all-powerful, + nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven nor earth, and + that he has little to identify him with that hereditary God of the Jews + who became the “Father” in the Christian system. On the other hand he will + assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is a spirit, a person, + a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and + lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human soul. He will be + much less certain in his denials that his God has a close resemblance to + the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) “Christ.” . . . + </p> + <p> + The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of + universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any God + and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense of God + within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the religious + experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the True God is a + generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of that bickering + monopolist who “will have none other gods but Me”; and when a human heart + cries out—to what name it matters not—for a larger spirit and + a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, straightway the + nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to the call. The + True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted the many-handed + symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. Where there is + faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready to clasp the hands + that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness behind the ivory and + gold. + </p> + <p> + The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly + among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything else, + a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, to be + limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing with us and + through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and future; he is + within time and not outside it. And they point out that this is really + what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help from God, feels and + believes. Our practice with God is better than our theory. None of us + really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a trois, the Trinity, + which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies of Alexandria and Syria + declared to be God. We pray to one single understanding person. But so far + the tactics of those Trinitarians at Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in + their ears, have prevailed in this world; this was no matter for + discussion, they declared, it was a Holy Mystery full of magical terror, + and few religious people have thought it worth while to revive these + terrors by a definite contradiction. The truly religious have been content + to lapse quietly into the comparative sanity of an unformulated Arianism, + they have left it to the scoffing Atheist to mock at the patent + absurdities of the official creed. But one magnificent protest against + this theological fantasy must have been the work of a sincerely religious + man, the cold superb humour of that burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no + doubt facetiously and then quite seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, + which, by an irony far beyond its original intention, has become at last + the accepted creed of the church. + </p> + <p> + The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to its + end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least patient + with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are very + definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth of the + Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of assuming + that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea is meant. + But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad + associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange + preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even + make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different + and antagonistic figure. + </p> + <p> + It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led the + theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for their + deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral quality of + the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who saddled + Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme poverty and + confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. Many of these + makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who had even to be + baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been pitchforked into + the church from civil life; they lived in a time of pitiless factions and + personal feuds; they had to conduct their disputations amidst the + struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs and favourites swayed their + counsels, and popular rioting clinched their decisions. There was less + freedom of discussion then in the Christian world than there is at present + (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience of educated opinion by which a + theory could be judged did not equal, either in numbers or accuracy of + information, the present population of Constantinople. To these conditions + we owe the claim that the Christian God is a magic god, very great + medicine in battle, “in hoc signo vinces,” and the argument so natural to + the minds of those days and so absurd to ours, that since he had ALL + power, all knowledge, and existed for ever and ever, it was no use + whatever to set up any other god against him. . . . + </p> + <p> + By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, + without which everyone was to be “damned everlastingly,” a conception of + God and of Christ’s relation to God, of which even by the Christian + account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so negligent + and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as scarcely to make + mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the relationship of the + Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one ambiguous and disputed + utterance in St. John’s gospel (XV. 26). Most of the teachings of + Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive student into + assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. Someone floats an + opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, in regard, for + example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of his birth. The new + opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds unaccustomed to so + definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil they fly to a + contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit that they + worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor deny the divinity + of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be polytheistic; equally + did they dread the least apparent detraction from the power and importance + of their Saviour. They were forced into the theory of the Trinity by the + necessity of those contrary assertions, and they had to make it a mystery + protected by curses to save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire + history of the growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early + centuries is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious + wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to clinch + matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, the church was + confronted by enormous political opportunities. In order that it should + seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The + emperor himself, albeit unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and + seated himself in the midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At + the end of it all Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn + everlastingly all those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had + doubted at the beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that + Constantine did not care who was damned or for what period, so long as the + Christians ceased to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of + Nicaea was secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he + sought by threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a + common faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of + the Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic + destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none + of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a real + knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left to work + themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist of + Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the + sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to + the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice + formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory + of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the + cement of Christian unity. + </p> + <p> + It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are + becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian’s + deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion declares + himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with self-complacency. + There is no reason why they should do so. That many of us have gone from + them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is not that we who went out + into the wilderness which we thought to be a desert, away from their + creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are returning. It is that we have + gone on still further, and are beyond that desolation. Never more shall we + return to those who gather under the cross. By faith we disbelieved and + denied. By faith we said of that stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that + incoherent accumulation of antique theological notions, the Nicene deity, + “This is certainly no God.” And by faith we have found God. . . . + </p> + <p> + 3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + </p> + <p> + There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he should + supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist thing to + say: “OUR God made the whole universe. Don’t you think that it would be + wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do anything of the + sort?” + </p> + <p> + The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this style + of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into the + Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, + demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, + the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for its + divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like Buddhism + in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin of the + universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space and time. It + sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with superlatives + which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the Hegelians with + the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or the + Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known things + there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is a Veiled + Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or ill. Of + that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we know nothing; to + us it is no more than the limit of understanding, the unknown beyond. It + may be of practically limitless intricacy and possibility. The new + religion does not pretend that the God of its life is that Being, or that + he has any relation of control or association with that Being. It does not + even assert that God knows all or much more than we do about that ultimate + Being. + </p> + <p> + For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human + analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being + reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms of + consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the ether. Some day + in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an understanding of + relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into those black + wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind will take us. + </p> + <p> + That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with the + stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled Being, + enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon which the + busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a great + stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. It may + be that they may never be able to deal with it. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + </p> + <p> + So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to the + modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and hate. It + is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out of this veiled + being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether inconceivable, is + another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through matter and clothing + itself in continually changing material forms, the maker of our world, + Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that inscrutable being as a wave + comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. It is as it were a great wave + rushing through matter and possessed by a spirit. It is a breeding, + fighting thing; it pants through the jungle track as the tiger and lifts + itself towards heaven as the tree; it is the rabbit bolting for its life + and the dove calling to her mate; it crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts + and devours, it pursues and eats itself in order to live still more + eagerly and hastily; it is every living thing, of it are our passions and + desires and fears. And it is aware of itself not as a whole, but + dispersedly as individual self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly + from every one of the sentient creatures it has called into being. They + look out for their little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, + full of the passions of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, + submitting only to brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are + beings of strain and conflict and competition. They are living substance + still mingled painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being + clothes itself bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and + bright with threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, + hold their own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and + pass. . . . + </p> + <p> + This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the + Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We may + speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant by the + Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic books that + must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether this heat and + haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the Manichees, the + evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is + no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it is + conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all the pain and conflict + of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, the delight and hope of + youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a hundred thousand sorts of + parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful limbs of man and woman; it has + shaped the slug and the flower. And in it, as part of it, taking its + rewards, responding to its goads, struggling against the final abandonment + to death, do we all live, as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, + revengeful, hopeful, weary, disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, + bored, in pain, mood after mood but always fearing death, with no + certainty and no coherence within us, until we find God. And God comes to + us neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still + small voice within. + </p> + <p> + 5. GOD IS WITHIN + </p> + <p> + God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men + and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he + has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of + mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is by + our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, + boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our friend + and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the belief of the + modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel idea about this + God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This is the God that + men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as the Messiah or the + Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the purposelessness of life. + The new religion has but disentangled the idea of him from the absolutes + and infinities and mysteries of the Christian theologians; from + mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and intellectual + pretentiousness of a vanished age. + </p> + <p> + Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, no + mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement of what + we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of life, we + all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if we seek + salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All this is in + the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states it were to be + instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people would find their + way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. To this all true + religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, must ultimately come. + To it indeed much religion is already coming. Christian thought struggles + towards it, with the millstones of Syrian theology and an outrageous + mythology of incarnation and resurrection about its neck. When at last our + present bench of bishops join the early fathers of the church in heaven + there will be, I fear, a note of reproach in their greeting of the + ingenious person who saddled them with OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous + for them has been the virgin birth, with the terrible fascination of its + detail for unpoetic minds. How rich is the literature of authoritative + Christianity with decisions upon the continuing virginity of Mary and the + virginity of Joseph—ideas that first arose in Arabia as a Moslem + gloss upon Christianity—and how little have these peepings and + pryings to do with the needs of the heart and the finding of God! + </p> + <p> + Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes as + that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled “The Faith and the + War,” a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and + canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring and + religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting under this + load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great articles, + outside the needle’s eye that leads to God. + </p> + <p> + 6. THE COMING OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God entirely + upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue about God; it + relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe and reverence + that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as one tells of a + friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a beautiful thing + found and picked up by the wayside. + </p> + <p> + So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal + salvation tallies very closely with the account of “conversion” as it is + given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already + familiar to the reader of William James’s “Varieties of Religious + Experience.” It describes an initial state of distress with the + aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of + the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to + form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known to + many sorts of Christian as “conviction of sin”; it is, at any rate, a + conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of God + comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without + substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is expounded + by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all those of the new + faith with whose personal experience I have any intimacy, the idea of God + has remained for some time simply as an idea floating about in a mind + still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, but it is realised that if + there were such a being he would supply the needed consolation and + direction, his continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort + of life, his immortality would take the sting from death. Under this + realisation the idea is pursued and elaborated. For a time there is a + curious resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person; he is + spoken of preferably by such phrases as the Purpose in Things, as the + Racial Consciousness, as the Collective Mind. + </p> + <p> + I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea + of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against + divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching + and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ as + the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the idea + that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is a + novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may + think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the + Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not + seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the idea + that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so much + about that God and so little of any other. With that release their minds + become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This + cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the + attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. It + is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, + sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is + completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with and + touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It is as + if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us into + fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . + </p> + <p> + “Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.” + </p> + <p> + The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, + or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. It + may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There is no + saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come our lives + are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of God. Thereafter + one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a lover, + like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. One is assured that + there is a Power that fights with us against the confusion and evil within + us and without. There comes into the heart an essential and enduring + happiness and courage. + </p> + <p> + There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but + under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this + manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however mean + and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is himself + finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength to + strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens to + meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The + faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would see + God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil of the + temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of this huge + friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little beings. To + find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all our days we + have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND + </h2> + <h3> + HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + </h3> + <p> + 1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake + that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living + water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is + synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; + the sediment subsides. + </p> + <p> + A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without mentality; + no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance of the + instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or nirvana. + It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord evoking the + will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need consciousness + breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the rents and tatters + in the smooth dark veil of being through which the light of consciousness + shines—the light of consciousness and will of which God is the sun. + </p> + <p> + So that every need of human life, every disappointment and dissatisfaction + and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may and do come to + the realisation of God. + </p> + <p> + There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life + from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men’s + religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel + doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their + mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from without, + the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards immortality. It is + possible to classify the appeals men make for God under the headings of + their chief system of effort, their efforts to understand, their fear and + their struggles for safety and happiness, the craving of their + restlessness for peace, their angers against disorder and their desire for + the avenger; their sexual passions and perplexities. . . . + </p> + <p> + Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort of + sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind of heresy, + its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the synthesis and + mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of God grows + clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, leads to the + endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent infirmities of the + human mind. But in these days one does not argue greatly about dogma. + Almost every conceivable error about unity, about personality, about time + and quantity and genus and species, about begetting and beginning and + limitation and similarity and every kink in the difficult mind of man, has + been thrust forward in some form of dogma. Beside the errors of thought + are the errors of emotion. Fear and feebleness go straight to the Heresies + that God is Magic or that God is Providence; restless egotism at leisure + and unchallenged by urgent elementary realities breeds the Heresies of + Mysticism, anger and hate call for God’s Judgments, and the stormy + emotions of sex gave mankind the Phallic God. Those who find themselves + possessed by the new spirit in religion, realise very speedily the + necessity of clearing the mind of all these exaggerations, transferences, + and overflows of feeling. The search for divine truth is like gold + washing; nothing is of any value until most has been swept away. + </p> + <p> + 2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + </p> + <p> + One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the most + various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from + wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are the + result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the clever + rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless variety + and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple confusions. + The former are the errors of the study, the latter the superstitions that + spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in our social structure + out of a barbaric past. + </p> + <p> + To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate doctrine + of the Trinity, dogmas about God’s absolute qualities, such odd deductions + as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of Mary and + Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox Christianity. + Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian account, expound or + recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was left for the + Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, busy, wire-pulling + Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was driving at, three + centuries after their Master was dead. . . . + </p> + <p> + Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their + inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary + perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error that + creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the limitations + upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle and disputation + across the path by which men come to God. It would not matter very much if + it were not that simpler souls are caught in these webs. Every great + religious system in the world is choked by such webs; each system has its + own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which make up doctrinal + Christianity and imprison the mind of the western world to-day, not one + seems to have been known to the nominal founder of Christianity. Jesus + Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; never spoke clearly of + the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of salvation and the significance + of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose that he left his apostles + without instructions, that were necessary to their eternal happiness, that + he could give them the Lord’s Prayer but leave them to guess at the + all-important Creed,* and that the Church staggered along blindly, putting + its foot in and out of damnation, until the “experts” of Nicaea, that + “garland of priests,” marshalled by Constantine’s officials, came to its + rescue. . . . From the conversion of Paul onward, the heresies of the + intellect multiplied about Christ’s memory and hid him from the sight of + men. We are no longer clear about the doctrine he taught nor about the + things he said and did. . . . + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Even the “Apostles’ Creed” is not traceable earlier than + the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched + formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down + for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and + used as a sort of password among the elect. +</pre> + <p> + We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at + heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to + spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in + which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. + There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, + but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand + different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks of + the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of the + Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of those + theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, who sit + on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the temples of + India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of the human + intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural heresies + that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, and which + are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to keep + constant watch. They return very insidiously. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + </p> + <p> + One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to + consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + </p> + <p> + It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our + souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to + hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of + acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led to + believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their own + souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing more + for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want him, + but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls think to + make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain things that are + supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such as saying prayers and + repeating gross praises of him, or reading in a blind, industrious way + that strange miscellany of Jewish and early Christian literature, the + Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, or making the Sabbath dull and + uncomfortable. In return for these fetishistic propitiations God is + supposed to interfere with the normal course of causation in their favour. + He becomes a celestial log-roller. He remedies unfavourable accidents, + cures petty ailments, contrives unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or + the like, he averts bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and + does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful people. + The pious are represented as being constantly delighted by these little + surprises, these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or + contrawise he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their + religious attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or + disorganises the careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is + represented as going Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a + Staffordshire worker goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is + saturated with this fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in + THE HIBBERT JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish + magazine. It is an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the + qualities of the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred + that their recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real + self-surrender, but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception + of the true God. + </p> + <p> + There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called THE + NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of various + clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen who belong + to the little school of thought which this magazine represents; it is, I + should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the Established Church of + England, that is to say within the Anglican communion of the Trinitarian + Christians. It contains among other papers a very entertaining summary by + a gentleman entitled—I cite the unusual title-page of the periodical—“Landseer + Mackenzie, Esq.,” of the views of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the + Kaiser William. They are distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie + discourses not only upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon + the relations of the weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and + honestly that God has been persistently rigging the weather against the + Germans. He points out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of + great help to the British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was + the wet state of the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders + in the winter of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in + delaying the relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the + difficult question why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, + did not, instead of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, + adopt the more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the + German stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting + their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or + gravitation. + </p> + <p> + Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only conclude + that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in the + established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity here with + nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find indeed the + essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in endless + official Christian utterances on the part of German and British and + Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently + ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long sermons—among + other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly convinced that God + can be invoked by ritual—for example by special days of national + prayer or an increased observance of Sunday—or made malignant by + neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their idea of him. The + ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of God, and + the belief of China in the magic propitiations and resentments of “Heaven” + is at least equally strong. + </p> + <p> + But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God of + luck and intervention. He is not to serve men’s ends or the ends of + nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies and + invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and weaknesses. + It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not coddle us. He has + his own ends for which he needs us. . . . + </p> + <p> + 4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + </p> + <p> + Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that calls + him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and effect to + be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the + order of events for our personal advantages. + </p> + <p> + The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in “Tartarin in + the Alps.” You will remember how Tartarin’s friend assured him that all + Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and far + too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, that all the + precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks guarded against + falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and the crevasses at + their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment bags. If the + mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned back by specious + excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved with incredible + daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of the whole world. + There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid soul to get through + life with a certain recklessness. And provided there is no slip into a + crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would work altogether well + if there were no crevasses. + </p> + <p> + Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. But + what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? + </p> + <p> + There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis + Younghusband called “Within.” [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the + confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence + until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and + campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he saw + much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The loss of + a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. Then + coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down by an + automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and mind. + His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost to see + the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and the torment + it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine essential + simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do so. His + confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether destroyed. + His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously he reconstructed + his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book typical of an age and + of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth reading. + </p> + <p> + That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how + near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + </p> + <p> + “The existence of an outside Providence,” he writes, “who created us, who + watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, we have + found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a Holy + Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its + fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we can + be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual impulsion + at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, is the + supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always attain to + light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too hard and it is + utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. But in a few it + bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who in some heavenly moment + of their lives have not been conscious of its presence. We may not be able + to give it outward expression, but we know that it is there.” . . . + </p> + <p> + God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining and + correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, there + is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an ill-tended + engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel guides your + steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your innocent + children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. Cherish no + delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and chance on your + own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those you care for. + Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. But God will be + with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the dark ice-cave God + will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, it is not an end. + He will be with you as you face death; he will die with you as he has died + already countless myriads of brave deaths. He will come so close to you + that at the last you will not know whether it is you or he who dies, and + the present death will be swallowed up in his victory. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + </p> + <p> + God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from + ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and + adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he makes + us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the + sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside + one, shoulder to shoulder. + </p> + <p> + The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from + life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of + the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many + mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command + services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of + indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence and + give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with the + divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how + ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed the + true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a + spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. The + true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, calling + for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must accept his + discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not by thinking + about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + </p> + <p> + 6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + </p> + <p> + Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral + indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were + more often “wrath” than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic deity + who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the influence of + the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and who became also + the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men against everything + that is unlike themselves, against strange people and cheerful people, + against unfamiliar usages and things they do not understand, embodied + itself in this conception of a malignant and partisan Deity, perpetually + “upset” by the little things people did, and contriving murder and + vengeance. Now this God would be drowning everybody in the world, now he + would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, now he would be inciting his + congenial Israelites to the most terrific pogroms. This divine + “frightfulness” is of course the natural human dislike and distrust for + queer practices or for too sunny a carelessness, a dislike reinforced by + the latent fierceness of the ape in us, liberating the latent fierceness + of the ape in us, giving it an excuse and pressing permission upon it, + handing the thing hated and feared over to its secular arm. . . . + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * It is not so generally understood as it should be among + English and American readers that a very large proportion of + early Christians before the creeds established and + regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely + that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel + against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as + Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived + for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held + by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the + Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The + catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the + circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely + on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew + God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, + when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only + the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. +</pre> + <p> + It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct for + restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet familiar + things, that these things of the True God should so readily liberate + cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to tend and + protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None the less, + right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God the Persecutor + and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent years that the + growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men a little ashamed + of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. The recent literature + of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this trouble. + </p> + <p> + Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying + the irascibility of his God and teaching “the Kaffirs of Natal” the + dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. “We cannot allow it to be said,” + the Dean of Cape Town insisted, “that God was not angry and was not + appeased by punishment.” He was angry “on account of Sin, which is a great + evil and a great insult to His Majesty.” The case of the Rev. Charles + Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the Church’s + insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to be found in + the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in the latest + edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it appears to have + been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the church would + prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey to-day. + </p> + <p> + 7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + </p> + <p> + Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of + miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed + parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and he + poisons all their lives. For many of us the word “God” first came into our + lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, as the + All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great convenience to + the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her charges and enforce + her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own aims. But indeed, the + teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul of a child scarcely less + dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason rebels and is crushed under + this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many minds never rise again from + their injury. They remain for the rest of life spiritually crippled and + debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a persuasion of relentless + cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + </p> + <p> + I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell were + the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed in him, + and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic monster, + perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting to condemn + and to “strike me dead”; his flames as ready as a grill-room fire. He was + over me and about my feebleness and silliness and forgetfulness as the sky + and sea would be about a child drowning in mid-Atlantic. When I was still + only a child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this + Lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God + himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to me + but the hideous scar in my heart where a fearful demon had been. + </p> + <p> + I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this + bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still + living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God + should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to + formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; they + dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, of + nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old watching + spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in their hearts, + echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, fear-driven. For + the true God has no lash of fear. And how the foul-minded bigot, with his + ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, gesticulating hands, his + bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this harvest of fear the + ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown for him! How he loves the + importance of denunciation, and, himself a malignant cripple, to rally the + company of these crippled souls to persecute and destroy the happy + children of God! . . . + </p> + <p> + Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real + wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and that + affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions of + instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak for me. + This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a debate in + the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the publications + of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: + </p> + <p> + “I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction + of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement + that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the proper + time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in the book. + Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and to these + children I find these statements addressed in the book: + </p> + <p> + “‘It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must + acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.’ + </p> + <p> + “I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there + were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not + mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that + it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to + its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the words, to + say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious question: + </p> + <p> + “‘Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to his + priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their sins. + It was to priests alone that Jesus said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” . . + . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a terrible + sickness, and casts souls into hell.’ + </p> + <p> + “That is addressed to a child six years of age. + </p> + <p> + “‘I have known,’ the book continues, ‘poor children who concealed their + sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented with + remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly have gone + to the everlasting fires of hell.’” . . . + </p> + <p> + Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time + after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their + preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are + among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, + lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not of + many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known sacerdotalism + this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly power release + an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of suffering and a + hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any other sort of + men. + </p> + <p> + 8. THE CHILDREN’S GOD + </p> + <p> + Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for an + idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still + children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to + feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . + </p> + <p> + The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no appetite + for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for the attention + of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who dream of glory + in the nursery, who love to hear it said, “The children adore him.” If + children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and mutual forbearance, + they will be ready for the true God as their needs bring them within his + scope. They should be left to their innocence, and to their trust in the + innocence of the world, as long as they can be. They should be told only + of God as a Great Friend whom some day they will need more and understand + and know better. That is as much as most children need. The phrases of + religion put too early into their mouths may become a cant, something + worse than blasphemy. + </p> + <p> + Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in + their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not + follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological formulae + or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike or + misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a + distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may + begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain + bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, + through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our + children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his + limitless charity. . . . + </p> + <p> + With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and + that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + </p> + <p> + 9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + </p> + <p> + In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very considerable + disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of sexual thought and + feeling. But in the early days of religion the two things were inseparably + bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, for example, is + continually proclaiming the extraordinary “wrath” of their God at this or + that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The + ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of + the Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as + Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the old + associations. But to this day the representative Christian churches still + make marriage into a mystical sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the + Roman communion exacts the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, + regardless of the mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. + Nearly every Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as + it can contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat + illegitimate children as unfortunate children, but as children with a + mystical and an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may + resent this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, + but let them consult their orthodox authorities. + </p> + <p> + One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or + sinful in itself and what is held to be one’s duty or a nation’s duty + because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to do. + By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our + institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. But + my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is + not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of + the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions + of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are + guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with + a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That + fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that + the Christian God remains a sex God in the minds of great numbers of his + exponents. His disentanglement from that plexus is incomplete. Sexual + things are still to the orthodox Christian, sacred things. + </p> + <p> + Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately + concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual + essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of + Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the most + petty and intimate of observances—many of which are now habitually + disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the + evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled our + conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual rules + that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ himself was + one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is the clearest + evidence in several instances of his disregard of the rule and his + insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit underlying and + often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser matter, has + followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further than it was + obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his principle that in + all these matters there is no need for superstitious fear, that the + interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the unembarrassed + intelligence of men. The church has followed him far enough to make the + harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics against what they are + pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, a profound inconsistency. + One seems to hear their distant protests when one reads of Christ and the + Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans and sinners. The clergy of + our own days play the part of the New Testament Pharisees with the utmost + exactness and complete unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern + ecclesiastic conversing with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, + unless she was in a very high social position indeed, or blending with + disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of condescension and much + explanatory by-play. Those who profess modern religion do but follow in + these matters a course entirely compatible with what has survived of the + authentic teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, + and that religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of + sexual things are a barbaric inheritance. + </p> + <p> + But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that + those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, + let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding + paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. We + would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and + observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more wholly + his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself + unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes + all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body + as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God’s service as he + can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such a consecrated + life. It is a matter between the individual and his conscience or his + doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may do or not do, what + he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. Nothing can exonerate + him from doing his utmost to determine and perform the right act. Nothing + can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here being insisted upon is + that none of these things has immediately to do with God or religious + emotion, except only the general will to do right in God’s service. The + detailed interpretation of that “right” is for the dispassionate + consideration of the human intelligence. + </p> + <p> + All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of the + emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most obstinately + recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always tending to leak + back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented priesthood of the + Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the extreme practices of the + Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike predecessors of Christianity, + there seems to be an extraordinary belief that chastity was not invented + until Christianity came, and that the religious life is largely the + propitiation of God by feats of sexual abstinence. But a superstitious + abstinence that scars and embitters the mind, distorts the imagination, + makes the body gross and keeps it unclean, is just as offensive to God as + any positive depravity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD + </h2> + <h3> + THE LIKENESS OF GOD + </h3> + <p> + 1. GOD IS COURAGE + </p> + <p> + Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as the + chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside from + our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God is. + Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there is + always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I have not + called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + </p> + <p> + And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + </p> + <p> + 2. GOD IS A PERSON + </p> + <p> + And next GOD IS A PERSON. + </p> + <p> + Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are + very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of + their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, + who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; + who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless + and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against much + that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be loyal; he is + our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our lives. He feels + us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He hopes and attempts. + . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no Infinite. He is as real + as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + </p> + <p> + Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking about + the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show us this + person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, presently + they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself suddenly in + the net of those ancient controversies between species and individual, + between the one and the many, which arise out of the necessarily imperfect + methods of the human mind. Upon these matters there has been much pregnant + writing during the last half century. Such ideas as this writer has to + offer are to be found in a previous little book of his, “First and Last + Things,” in which, writing as one without authority or specialisation in + logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man vividly interested, for others in + a like case, he was at some pains to elucidate the imperfections of this + instrument of ours, this mind, by which we must seek and explain and reach + up to God. Suffice it here to say that theological discussion may very + easily become like the vision of a man with cataract, a mere projection of + inherent imperfections. If we do not use our phraseology with a certain + courage, and take that of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us + with a certain politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any + discussion in so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, + denials, and wranglings. And about this word “person” it is necessary to + be as clear and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a + definition of mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case + impossible. + </p> + <p> + Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a + man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; we + forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has + forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided + against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the contrary + we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him + continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only + abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the + idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word “person” there is + more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the + person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as opposed + to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the gods of + primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that quality of + person. They were thought of as living in very splendid bodies and as + acting consistently. If they were invisible in the ordinary world it was + because they were aloof or because their “persons” were too splendid for + weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated view of the person of the + Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who insisted upon seeing Zeus in + the glories that were sacred to Juno, was utterly consumed. The early + Islamic conception of God, like the conception of most honest, simple + Christians to-day, was clearly, in spite of the theologians, of a very + exalted anthropomorphic personality away somewhere in Heaven. The personal + appearance of the Christian God is described in The Revelation, and + however much that description may be explained away by commentators as + symbolical, it is certainly taken by most straightforward believers as a + statement of concrete reality. Now if we are going to insist upon this + primary meaning of person and individual, then certainly God as he is now + conceived is not a person and not an individual. The true God will never + promenade an Eden or a Heaven, nor sit upon a throne. + </p> + <p> + But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian + theological thought—that, for instance, which has found such + delicate and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of + Rabindranath Tagore—has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic + insistence upon a body. From the earliest ages man’s mind has found little + or no difficulty in the idea of something essential to the personality, a + soul or a spirit or both, existing apart from the body and continuing + after the destruction of the body, and being still a person and an + individual. From this it is a small step to the thought of a person + existing independently of any existing or pre-existing body. That is the + idea of theological Christianity, as distinguished from the Christianity + of simple faith. The Triune Persons—omnipresent, omniscient, and + omnipotent—exist for all time, superior to and independent of + matter. They are supremely disembodied. One became incarnate—as a + wind eddy might take up a whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern + religion conceive that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea of + spirituality, a disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the limits + of the conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that a person, + a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal body. . . . They + declare that God is without any specific body, that he is immaterial, that + he can affect the material universe—and that means that he can only + reach our sight, our hearing, our touch—through the bodies of those + who believe in him and serve him. + </p> + <p> + His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, in his + essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with space. He is + not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. Since the period when all + the great theologies that prevail to-day were developed, there have been + great changes in the ideas of men towards the dimensions of time and + space. We owe to Kant the release from the rule of these ideas as + essential ideas. Our modern psychology is alive to the possibility of + Being that has no extension in space at all, even as our speculative + geometry can entertain the possibility of dimensions—fourth, fifth, + Nth dimensions—outside the three-dimensional universe of our + experience. And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an + infinite remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere + immediately at hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere + immediately at hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of men. + He is in immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + </p> + <p> + But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter or + space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; that he + changes and becomes more even as a man’s purpose gathers itself together; + that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a beginning, an awakening, + and that as mankind grows he grows. With our eyes he looks out upon the + universe he invades; with our hands, he lays hands upon it. All our truth, + all our intentions and achievements, he gathers to himself. He is the + undying human memory, the increasing human will. + </p> + <p> + But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the + collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that this + is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who believe in the new + ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not an aggregate but a + synthesis. He is not merely the best of all of us, but a Being in himself, + composed of that but more than that, as a temple is more than a gathering + of stones, or a regiment is more than an accumulation of men. They point + out that a man is made up of a great multitude of cells, each equivalent + to a unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor is he simply + just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of them. You can + take away these and these and these, and he still remains. And he can + detach part of himself and treat it as if it were not himself, just as a + man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer the martyr did, thrust his hand + into the flames. A man is none the less himself because his hair is cut or + his appendix removed or his leg amputated. + </p> + <p> + And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that + spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the + tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But men + love England, which is made up of such things. + </p> + <p> + And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither body + nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to him, though + we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he sometimes uses. + And we may think of him as having moods and aspects—as a man has—and + a consistency we call his character. + </p> + <p> + These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey this + modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person whose will + and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands the religious life + seeks conversion by argument. First one must feel the need of God, then + one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God. That much is no more + than turning one’s face to the east to see the coming of the sun. One may + still doubt if that direction is the east or whether the sun will rise. + The real coming of God is not that. It is a change, an irradiation of the + mind. Everything is there as it was before, only now it is aflame. + Suddenly the light fills one’s eyes, and one knows that God has risen and + that doubt has fled for ever. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS YOUTH + </p> + <p> + The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + </p> + <p> + God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into the + future. + </p> + <p> + Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is in those + systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian attempt to represent + or symbolise God the Father which is not a bearded, aged man. White hair, + beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred such symptoms of senile decay are + there. These marks of senility do not astonish our modern minds in the + picture of God, only because tradition and usage have blinded our eyes to + the absurdity of a time-worn immortal. Jove too and Wotan are figures far + past the prime of their vigour. These are gods after the ancient habit of + the human mind, that turned perpetually backward for causes and reasons + and saw all things to come as no more than the working out of Fate,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe.” + </pre> + <p> + But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but our + future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure of a + beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his strength. + He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, eager to go + forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that was still but a + promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, discriminating weapon, his + eyes should be as bright as swords; his lips should fall apart with + eagerness for the great adventure before him, and he should be in very + fresh and golden harness, reflecting the rising sun. Death should still + hang like mists and cloud banks and shadows in the valleys of the wide + landscape about him. There should be dew upon the threads of gossamer and + little leaves and blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + </p> + <p> + 4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + </p> + <p> + One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most trite + and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that deserves + careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; there are people + who will say they love new potatoes; there are a multitude of loves of + different colours and values. There is the love of a mother for her child, + there is the love of brothers, there is the love of youth and maiden, and + the love of husband and wife, there is illicit love and the love one bears + one’s home or one’s country, there are dog-lovers and the loves of the + Olympians, and love which is a passion of jealousy. Love is frequently a + mere blend of appetite and preference; it may be almost pure greed; it may + have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit self-forgetful nor generous. It + is possible so to phrase things that the furtive craving of a man for + another man’s wife may be made out to be a light from God. Yet about all + the better sorts of love, the sorts of love that people will call “true + love,” there is something of that same exaltation out of the narrow self + that is the essential quality of the knowledge of God. + </p> + <p> + Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the + exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the windows by + which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is the open door by + which we freely go. And God never dies, nor disappoints, nor betrays. + </p> + <p> + The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its earlier + phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much possessiveness and + exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced trust, and far too great a + kindred with jealousy to be like the love of God. The former is a dramatic + relationship that drifts to a climax, and then again seeks presently a + climax, and that may be satiated or fatigued. But the latter is far more + like the love of comrades, or like the love of a man and a woman who have + loved and been through much trouble together, who have hurt one another + and forgiven, and come to a complete and generous fellowship. There is a + strange and beautiful love that men tell of that will spring up on + battlefields between sorely wounded men, and often they are men who have + fought together, so that they will do almost incredibly brave and tender + things for one another, though but recently they have been trying to kill + each other. There is often a pure exaltation of feeling between those who + stand side by side manfully in any great stress. These are the forms of + love that perhaps come nearest to what we mean when we speak of the love + of God. + </p> + <p> + That is man’s love of God, but there is also something else; there is the + love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this is not an + indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love of a woman for + her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; God must love his + followers as a great captain loves his men, who are so foolish, so + helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet whose faith alone makes him + possible. It is an austere love. The spirit of God will not hesitate to + send us to torment and bodily death. . . . + </p> + <p> + And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach him. He + has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to make himself + known to us. When at last the individual breaks through the limiting + darknesses to him, the irradiation of that moment, the smile and soul + clasp, is in God as well as in man. He has won us from his enemy. We come + staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, to fight for his + kingdom henceforth, until at last we are altogether taken up into his + being. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + </p> + <p> + It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to drape + about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, the honest + Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth bare, is + constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. It will be + interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme instability of + absolute negation. + </p> + <p> + Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who was a + very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the other day. He + was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man almost of the rank and + quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A decade or more ago he wrote a book + called “The Nature of Man,” in which he set out very plainly a number of + illuminating facts about life. They are facts so illuminating that + presently, in our discussion of sin, they will be referred to again. But + it is not Professor Metchnikoff’s intention to provide material for a + religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to overthrow theology + as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his book, the thing upon + which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no inkling of the fact + that he has no longer the right to conceive theology as he conceives it. + The development of his science has destroyed that right. + </p> + <p> + He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our ideas + of individuality and species, and how the import of theology is modified + through these changes. When he comes from his own world of modern biology + to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. He attacks religion as he + understood it when first he fell out with it fifty years or more ago. + </p> + <p> + Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes that + biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the general scheme + and method of our thinking. + </p> + <p> + The influence of biology upon thought in general consists essentially in + diminishing the importance of the individual and developing the + realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of super-individual, a + modifying and immortal super-individual, maintaining itself against the + outer universe by the birth and death of its constituent individuals. + Natural History, which began by putting individuals into species as if the + latter were mere classificatory divisions, has come to see that the + species has its adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding in + interest and importance the individual adventure. “The Origin of Species” + was for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + </p> + <p> + The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be stated + plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we current + individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us distributed between two + parents, then between four grandparents, and so on backward, we are + temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an ancestral diffusion; we stand + our trial, and presently our individuality is dispersed and mixed again + with other individualities in an uncertain multitude of descendants. But + the species is not like this; it goes on steadily from newness to newness, + remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual life is a mere + episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing adventure of the + species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of life and the + distresses of life in the fact that the species is still very painfully + adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under which it lives. The + conflict of life is a continual pursuit of adjustment, and the “ills of + life,” of the individual life that is, are due to its “disharmonies.” Man, + acutely aware of himself as an individual adventure and unawakened to + himself as a species, finds life jangling and distressful, finds death + frustration. He fails and falls as a person in what may be the success and + triumph of his kind. He does not apprehend the struggle or the nature of + victory, but only his own gravitation to death and personal extinction. + </p> + <p> + Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti-religious + because to him as to so many Europeans religion is confused with + priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with disagreeable early impressions + of irrational repression and misguidance. How completely he misconceives + the quality of religion, how completely he sees it as an individual’s + affair, his own words may witness: + </p> + <p> + “Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions which + as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future life + has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life after + death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On the + other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy + humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought of + the inevitability of death.” + </p> + <p> + Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, and by a + future life the prolongation of individuality. But Buddhism does not in + truth appear ever to have been concerned with that, and modern religious + developments are certainly not under that preoccupation with the narrower + self. Buddhism indeed so far from “preaching resignation” to death, seeks + as its greater good a death so complete as to be absolute release from the + individual’s burthen of KARMA. Buddhism seeks an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL + IMMORTALITY. The deeper one pursues religious thought the more nearly it + approximates to a search for escape from the self-centred life and + over-individuation, and the more it diverges from Professor Metchnikoff’s + assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to lose one’s self. But + Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied that this is so, is then left + free to take the very essentials of the religious life as they are here + conceived and present them as if they were the antithesis of the religious + life. His book, when it is analysed, resolves itself into just that + research for an escape from the painful accidents and chagrins of + individuation, which is the ultimate of religion. + </p> + <p> + At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true solution + round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his most hopeful + satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such a scientific + prolongation of life that the instinct for self-preservation will be at + last extinct. If that is not the very “resignation” he imputes to the + Buddhist I do not know what it is. He believes that an individual which + has lived fully and completely may at last welcome death with the same + instinctive readiness as, in the days of its strength, it shows for the + embraces of its mate. We are to be glutted by living to six score and ten. + We are to rise from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We shall + go to death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men are to have + a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their prime, and + their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a period of + ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and twenty or + thereabouts) and public service! + </p> + <p> + (But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the simple + pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? Metchnikoff never faces + that question. And again, what of the man who is challenged to die for + right at the age of thirty? What does the prolongation of life do for him? + And where are the consolations for accidental misfortune, for the + tormenting disease or the lost limb?) + </p> + <p> + But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure religiosity. + The prolongation of life gives place to sheer self-sacrifice as the + fundamental “remedy.” And indeed what other remedy has ever been conceived + for the general evil of life? + </p> + <p> + “On the other hand,” he writes, “the knowledge that the goal of human life + can be attained only by the development of a high degree of solidarity + amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that the enjoyment + of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes ix. 7-10)* is + opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and the evil that + comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able to redress the + disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly to the + improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine + with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let + thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no + ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all + the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee + under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy + portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest + under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it + with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor + knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. +</pre> + <p> + “In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted + continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has produced + a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In the problem of + his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of nature; he must + direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able to modify the + nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify his own + constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . . + </p> + <p> + “To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame + the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of + science. + </p> + <p> + “If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion + of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And if + it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith + alone, the faith must be in the power of science.” + </p> + <p> + Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of + “religion” and “philosophy” as remedies for human ills, is nothing less + than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into + terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really + over-individuation and that salvation is escape from self into the larger + being of life. . . . + </p> + <p> + What can this “religion of the future” be but that devotion to the racial + adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already found, like + gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed away the confusions + and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an inquiry setting out from a + purely religious starting-point we have already reached conclusions + identical with this ultimate refuge of an extreme materialist. + </p> + <p> + This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our God—an + altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + </p> + <p> + 2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + </p> + <p> + Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness and + generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were the + statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a religious writer + would say—except that God is not named. Religious metaphors abound. + It is as if they accepted the living body of religion but denied the bones + that held it together—as they might deny the bones of a friend. It + is true, they would admit, the body moves in a way that implies bones in + its every movement, but—WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE BONES. + </p> + <p> + The disputes in theory—I do not say the difference in reality—between + the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic—becomes at times + almost as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to students of + physics, whether the scientific “ether” is real or a formula. Every + material phenomenon is consonant with and helps to define this ether, + which permeates and sustains and is all things, which nevertheless is + perceptible to no sense, which is reached only by an intellectual process. + Most minds are disposed to treat this ether as a reality. But the acutely + critical mind insists that what is only so attainable by inference is not + real; it is no more than “a formula that satisfies all phenomena.” + </p> + <p> + But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that + satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + </p> + <p> + Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to + believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, + from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and + spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as yet + felt only unassigned impulses. One says God’s will is so; the other that + Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other the Good + Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, moves me to + do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference and escapes a + risk of self-righteousness. + </p> + <p> + I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called “The + Tyranny of Shams,” in which he displays very typically this curious + tendency to a sort of religion with God “blacked out.” His is an extremely + interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman Catholic priest, + and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a resolution even sterner + than Professor Metchnikoff’s, to deny that anything religious or divine + can exist, that there can be any aim in life except happiness, or any + guide but “science.” But—and here immediately he turns east again—he + is careful not to say “individual happiness.” And he says “Pleasure is, as + Epicureans insisted, only a part of a large ideal of happiness.” So he + lets the happiness of devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens + indefinite possibilities of getting away from any merely materialistic + rule of life. And he writes: + </p> + <p> + “In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and + indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness. Why, + they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a thing as a duty to + improve the earth? What is the meaning or purpose of life? Or has it a + purpose? + </p> + <p> + “One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of + controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People tell you + that the conflict of science and religion—it would be better to say, + the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions—has robbed + life of its plain significance. The men who, like Tolstoi, seriously urge + this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life. Certainly modern + culture—science, history, philosophy, and art—finds no purpose + in life: that is to say, no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered + by man. A great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine ‘a + series of lucky accidents’—the chance blowing by the wind of certain + chemicals into pools on the primitive earth—accounting for the first + appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the influences which + have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as a + similar series of lucky accidents. + </p> + <p> + “But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there is + no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development of + humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose and set + up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will teach us that + this choice must be social, not merely individual. In whatever measure + ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal impulses or attractions, + the aim of the race must be a collective aim. I do not mean an austere + demand of self-sacrifice from the individual, but an adjustment—as + genial and generous as possible—of individual variations for common + good. Otherwise life becomes discordant and futile, and the pain and waste + react on each individual. So we raise again, in the twentieth century, the + old question of ‘the greatest good,’ which men discussed in the Stoa + Poikile and the suburban groves of Athens, in the cool atria of patrician + mansions on the Palatine and the Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and + the schools which Omar Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of + the Middle Ages and the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring + happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above all + the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, which + have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that height—just + as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on no metaphysic, no + sacred legend, no disputable tradition—nothing that scepticism can + corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations are the + fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time is + an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of that + larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general social + organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. It finds a + sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the finer + sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines it is + the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of the claims + of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, for these are + elemental principles of social life; but it appeals more confidently to + the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered children of the race, + and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction of suffering and the + creation of happiness. The advance guard of the race, the men and women in + whom mental alertness is associated with fine feeling, cry that they have + reached Pisgah’s slope and in increasing numbers men and women are + pressing on to see if it be really the Promised Land.” + </p> + <p> + “Pisgah—the Promised Land!” Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if + he were half-way to “Oh! Beulah Land!” and the tambourine. + </p> + <p> + That “larger spirit,” we maintain, is God; those “impulses” are the power + of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to realise + fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic Church, + and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured back to that + altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that preoccupation, and + immediately he will begin to realise the presence of Divinity. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + </p> + <p> + It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves + to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that if their + conception of right living falls in so completely with the conception of + God’s service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God, like the ether + of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no more than an + imaginative externalisation of man’s inherent good will. Why trouble about + God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition a sufficient + evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such benevolent + unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those who have + found God? + </p> + <p> + The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone upon his + own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting to his + own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral strength. A certain + immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs like a precipice above him; + incalculable temptations open like gulfs beneath his feet. He has not + really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to whom he + can give himself. He is still a masterless man. His exaltation is + self-centred, is priggishness, his fall is unrestrained by any exterior + obligation. His devotion is only the good will in himself, a disposition; + it is a mood that may change. At any moment it may change. He may have + pledged himself to his own pride and honour, but who will hold him to his + bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own amiable sentiments, + his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and no one watches while + he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. He has no real and living + link with other men of good will. + </p> + <p> + And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely intellectual are + in no better case than those who deny God altogether. They may have all + the forms of truth and not divinity. The religion of the atheist with a + God-shaped blank at its heart and the persuasion of the unconverted + theologian, are both like lamps unlit. The lit lamp has no difference in + form from the lamp unlit. But the lit lamp is alive and the lamp unlit is + asleep or dead. + </p> + <p> + The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the servant + of the true God is this; it is that the latter has experienced a complete + turning away from self. This only difference is all the difference in the + world. It is the realisation that this goodness that I thought was within + me and of myself and upon which I rather prided myself, is without me and + above myself, and infinitely greater and stronger than I. It is the + immortal and I am mortal. It is invincible and steadfast in its purpose, + and I am weak and insecure. It is no longer that I, out of my inherent and + remarkable goodness, out of the excellence of my quality and the + benevolence of my heart, give a considerable amount of time and attention + to the happiness and welfare of others—because I choose to do so. On + the contrary I have come under a divine imperative, I am obeying an + irresistible call, I am a humble and willing servant of the righteousness + of God. That altruism which Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would + have us regard as the goal and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is + really the first simple commandment in the religious life. + </p> + <p> + 4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + </p> + <p> + Now here is a passage from a book, “Evolution and the War,” by Professor + Metchnikoff’s translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which comes even closer + to our conception of God as an immortal being arising out of man, and + external to the individual man. He has been discussing that well-known + passage of Kant’s: “Two things fill my mind with ever-renewed wonder and + awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them—the starry vault above + me, and the moral law within me.” + </p> + <p> + From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this most + definite and interesting statement: + </p> + <p> + “Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel + and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who dislikes + all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the + implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain + as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that + the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It + has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the + work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not in man, + inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his customs, in + his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance are the + crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in a high + place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall, but + the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations must be + measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the debasement + or perfection of man’s great achievement.” + </p> + <p> + This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that this book + asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we call Him “Man’s + Great Achievement” or “The Son of Man” or the “God of Mankind” or “God.” + So far as the practical and moral ends of life are concerned, it does not + matter how we explain or refuse to explain His presence in our lives. + </p> + <p> + There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. Chalmers + Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is asserted that + GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of self-suppression to + our weakness. + </p> + <p> + 5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + </p> + <p> + Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture upon + Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same + characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of + denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute + Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the possibility + of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite Being from the + idea of God. It is another striking instance of that obsession of modern + minds by merely Christian theology of which I have already complained. + Professor Murray has quoted Mr. Bevan’s phrase for God, “the Friend behind + phenomena,” and he does not seem to realise that that phrase carries with + it no obligation whatever to believe that this Friend is in control of the + phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to be in control as if it were a + matter of course: + </p> + <p> + “We do seem to find,” Professor Murray writes, “not only in all religions, + but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man is not quite + alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours towards the good by + some external help or sympathy. We find it everywhere in the + unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded self-revelations of the + most severe and conscientious Atheists. Now, the Stoics, like many other + schools of thought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. + It was not an absolute proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, + but it was a strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive + belief in the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must be + a good cause for that belief. + </p> + <p> + “This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But it does + not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the content of the + belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those + points on which Stoicism, in company with almost all philosophy up to the + present time, has gone astray through not sufficiently realising its + dependence on the human mind as a natural biological product. For it is + very important in this matter to realise that the so-called belief is not + really an intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole nature. + </p> + <p> + “It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise + the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally + unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from + the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see + philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the + Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a + moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it seems + to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old + ineradicable instinct. We are gregarious animals; our ancestors have been + such for countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world as + gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. + Students of animals under domestication have shown us how the habits of a + gregarious creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in a thousand + details by reference to the lost pack which is no longer there—the + pack which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time he is out + walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. It is a + strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the gregarious animal + for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may be, it may very + possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind phenomena our own + yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive conviction, since + they are certainly not founded on either reason or observation, are in + origin the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious animal to find its herd + or its herd-leader in the great spaces between the stars. + </p> + <p> + “At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of.” + </p> + <p> + There the passage and the lecture end. + </p> + <p> + I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the reality of + God. + </p> + <p> + Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed + solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, “atheists” + so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one’s own was not + the universal disposition of living things. His classical training + disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual difference. But + nearly every animal, and certainly every mentally considerable animal, + begins under parental care, in a nest or a litter, mates to breed, and is + associated for much of its life. Even the great carnivores do not go alone + except when they are old and have done with the most of life. Every pack, + every herd, begins at some point in a couple, it is the equivalent of the + tiger’s litter if that were to remain undispersed. And it is within the + memory of men still living that in many districts the African lion has + with a change of game and conditions lapsed from a “solitary” to a + gregarious, that is to say a prolonged family habit of life. + </p> + <p> + Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher apes, is + an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has passed within the + historical period from a tribal gregariousness to a nearly cosmopolitan + tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. He is not, as Professor Murray + seems to suggest, a solitary LOST gregarious beast. Why should his desire + for God be regarded as the overflow of an unsatisfied gregarious instinct, + when he has home, town, society, companionship, trade union, state, + INCREASINGLY at hand to glut it? Why should gregariousness drive a man to + God rather than to the third-class carriage and the public-house? Why + should gregariousness drive men out of crowded Egyptian cities into the + cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer in a memorable passage (about the + hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is flatly opposed to Professor Murray, + and seems far more plausible when he declares that the nature of man is + insufficiently gregarious. The parallel with the dog is not a valid one. + </p> + <p> + Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the Friend + that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not the real + deception, our belief that we are completely individualised, and is it not + possible that this that Professor Murray calls “instinct” is really not a + vestige but a new thing arising out of our increasing understanding, an + intellectual penetration to that greater being of the species, that vine, + of which we are the branches? Why should not the soul of the species, many + faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like our own? + </p> + <p> + Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other cases of + atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate understanding of + individuation bars the way to at least the intellectual recognition of the + true God. + </p> + <p> + 6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + </p> + <p> + And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent + interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston’s. You will note that while + in this book we use the word “God” to indicate the God of the Heart, Sir + Harry uses “God” for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, which we have + spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word “God” is of late + theological origin; the original identity of the words “good” and “god” + and all the stories of the gods are against him. But Sir Harry takes up + God only to define him away into incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + </p> + <p> + “We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, + assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating + this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of + planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. We + are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is intended + to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out of incompleteness + and misery; and we are entitled to identify the reactionary forces of + brute Nature with the anthropomorphic Devil of primitive religions, the + power of darkness resisting the power of light. But in these conjectures + we must surely come to the conclusion that the theoretical potency we call + ‘God’ makes endless experiments, and scrap-heaps the failures. Think of + the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of creative energy that went to their + differentiation and their well-nigh incredible physical development. . . . + </p> + <p> + “To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and + perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may seem + little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the cutting, + the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as little + remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the Creative + Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA MEMBRA of + perfected life on this planet. . . .” + </p> + <p> + But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God of man + as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of + humanitarianism. Sir Harry’s ideas are much less thoroughly thought out + than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On that + account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ were + simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of ethics—and + yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though religions were + nothing more than ethical movements, and as though Christianity were + merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness that everything was + simply horrid, and so, “Let us instal loving kindness as a cardinal + axiom.” He ignores altogether the fundamental essential of religion, which + is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES + OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE + WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. He presents a conception of religion + relieved of its “nonsense” as the cheerful self-determination of a number + of bright little individuals (much stirred but by no means overcome by + Cosmic Pity) to the Service of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as + outward a thing, it goes as little into the intimacy of their lives, as + though they had after proper consideration agreed to send a subscription + to a Red Cross Ambulance or take part in a public demonstration against + the Armenian Massacres, or do any other rather nice-spirited exterior + thing. This is what he says: + </p> + <p> + “I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the + Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian ideal + and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and disputable, + and ‘mattering not neither here nor there,’ of Christian theology—a + theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of Christ—and all + of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made immortal in their + application by unassailable truth and by the confirmation of science. An + excellent remedy for the nonsense which still clings about religion may be + found in two books: Cotter Monson’s ‘Service of Man,’ which was published + as long ago as 1887, and has since been re-issued by the Rationalist Press + Association in its well-known sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton’s + ‘Man and the Bible.’ Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of + the relations between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade’s + ‘Martyrdom of Man.’” + </p> + <p> + Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a + well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength in + his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the “Service of Man” is no + better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the + undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIFTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE INVISIBLE KING + </h3> + <p> + 1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + </p> + <p> + The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince growing + in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his service and who + gives salvation from self and mortality only through self-abandonment to + his service, necessarily involves a demand for a complete revision and + fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + </p> + <p> + God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and confusions + and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a dark jungle to a + great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a sword. It is plain that + he can admit no divided control of the world he claims. He concedes + nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy there are no human things that are + God’s and others that are Caesar’s. Those of the new thought cannot render + unto God the things that are God’s, and to Caesar the things that are + Caesar’s. Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men’s lives and direct + their destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king nor + Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except he claim + as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his claim. The + steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place for the + sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims “divine right” plays with the + lightning. + </p> + <p> + The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or + democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make plain + the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the discovery and + service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts of men, and the + performance of that will, not only in the private life of the believer but + in the acts and order of the state and nation of which he is a part. I + give myself to God not only because I am so and so but because I am + mankind. I become in a measure responsible for every evil in the world of + men. I become a knight in God’s service. I become my brother’s keeper. I + become a responsible minister of my King. I take sides against injustice, + disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, princes, + landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God’s rule and + worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the + world’s affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow-servants + of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast antagonism. + </p> + <p> + 2. THE WILL OF GOD + </p> + <p> + It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem most + arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will relate of a + close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, the aims of his + kingship. And just as they advance no proof whatever of the existence of + God but their realisation of him, so with regard to these qualities and + dispositions they have little argument but profound conviction. What they + say is this; that if you do not feel God then there is no persuading you + of him; we cannot win over the incredulous. And what they say of his + qualities is this; that if you feel God then you will know, you will + realise more and more clearly, that thus and thus and no other is his + method and intention. + </p> + <p> + It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full implications + of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it asserted that the first + purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a + means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power. For that he + must use human eyes and hands and brains. + </p> + <p> + And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only beginning to + apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as time goes on. But it + is possible to define the broad outlines of the attainment he seeks. It is + the conquest of death. + </p> + <p> + It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the + individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying + purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to threaten our + species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. God fights against + death in every form, against the great death of the race, against the + petty death of indolence, insufficiency, baseness, misconception, and + perversion. He it is and no other who can deliver us “from the body of + this death.” This is the battle that grows plainer; this is the purpose to + which he calls us out of the animal’s round of eating, drinking, lusting, + quarrelling and laughing and weeping, fearing and failing, and presently + of wearying and dying, which is the whole life that living without God can + give us. And from these great propositions there follow many very definite + maxims and rules of life for those who serve God. These we will + immediately consider. + </p> + <p> + 3. THE CRUCIFIX + </p> + <p> + But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind of + intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and the vaguer + sort of Christianity. There are a number of people closely in touch with + those who have found the new religion who, biased probably by a dread of + too complete a break with Christianity, have adopted a theogony which is + very reminiscent of Gnosticism and of the Paulician, Catharist, and + kindred sects to which allusion has already been made. He, who is called + in this book God, they would call God-the-Son or Christ, or the Logos; and + what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled Being, they would call + God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as Life, they would call, with a + certain disregard of the poor brutes that perish, Man. And they would + assert, what we of the new belief, pleading our profound ignorance, would + neither assert nor deny, that that Darkness, out of which came Life and + God, since it produced them must be ultimately sympathetic and of like + nature with them. And that ultimately Man, being redeemed and led by + Christ and saved from death by him, would be reconciled with God the + Father.* And this great adventurer out of the hearts of man that we here + call God, they would present as the same with that teacher from Galilee + who was crucified at Jerusalem. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for + him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and + chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the + blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is + an escape from the “inadequate" ideas of the mortal human + personality to the “adequate” and timeless ideas of God. +</pre> + <p> + Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon this + apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. Firstly, + we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the veiled being nor + about that being’s relations to God and to Life. We do not recognise any + consistent sympathetic possibilities between these outer beings and our + God. Our God is, we feel, like Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And + the accepted figure of Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in the + tone of our worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, but + by fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the thing + that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he cannot + escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross or chained to + be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary sufferings, like + hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in themselves bring victory. + They may be necessary, but they are not glorious. The symbol of the + crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched figure of Christ, the sorrowful + cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” these + things jar with our spirit. We little men may well fail and repent, but it + is our faith that our God does not fail us nor himself. We cannot accept + the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to a pitiful God. We cannot accept the + Resurrection as though it were an after-thought to a bitterly felt death. + Our crucifix, if you must have a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a + foot already torn away from its nail, and with eyes not downcast but + resolute against the sky; a face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in + the surpassing glory of the struggle and the inflexible will to live and + prevail. . . . + </p> + <p> + But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible the + wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is courage + beyond any conceivable suffering. + </p> + <p> + But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns the + figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the figure of God, + and the crucifix only so far as that stands for divine action. The figure + of Christ crucified, so soon as we think of it as being no more than the + tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man who proclaimed the loving-kindness of + God and the supremacy of God’s kingdom over the individual life, and who, + in the extreme agony of his pain and exhaustion, cried out that he was + deserted, becomes something altogether distinct from a theological symbol. + Immediately that we cease to worship, we can begin to love and pity. Here + was a being of extreme gentleness and delicacy and of great courage, of + the utmost tolerance and the subtlest sympathy, a saint of non-resistance. + . . . + </p> + <p> + We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We are the + militant followers of and participators in a militant God. We can + appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle being upon + whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is the remotest + quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is the completest + inversion of his likeness as we know him. A Christianity which shows, for + its daily symbol, Christ risen and trampling victoriously upon a broken + cross, would be far more in the spirit of our worship.* + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a + letter written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that + pertinacious correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, + almost exactly the same sentiments I have here expressed. + “If I could fill the Crucifix with life as you do,” he says, + “I would gladly look on it, but the fallen Head and the + closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of glorified + humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who ‘hath + been crucified,’ who hath passed the trial victoriously and + borne the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this + side of the glory.” + </pre> + <p> + I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit in a + tract, “The Call of the Kingdom,” by that very able and subtle, Anglican + theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the vitalising + stresses of the war we are winning “faith in Christ as an heroic leader. + We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle that there is no ground + in our picture of Him, for the vision which His disciple had of Him: ‘His + head and His hair were white, as white wool, white as snow; and His eyes + were as a flame of fire: and His feet like unto burnished brass, as if it + had been refined in a furnace; and His voice was as the voice of many + waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth + proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun + shineth in its strength.’” + </p> + <p> + These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how clearly + parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + </p> + <p> + Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite + intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth + and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to our + inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the + chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we who + have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be + equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share with + him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and + clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, and + every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in ourselves + but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment of his real + and visible kingdom throughout the world. + </p> + <p> + And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not + merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but that + the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric of the + world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the village + school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market town, in the + mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman’s house. It means that + ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor is to disfigure our + coins and stamps any more; God himself and no delegate is to be + represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters and our receipts, a + perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no act altogether + without significance, no power so humble that it may not be used for or + against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To realise God in one’s + heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, and the way of his + service is neither to pull up one’s life by the roots nor to continue it + in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it about, to turn everything + that there is in it round into his way. + </p> + <p> + The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the + abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves, + but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt to be + utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to keep oneself fit + and bright for God’s service, and to increase one’s knowledge and powers, + and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one’s baser motives, a watch + against fear and indolence, against vanity, against greed and lust, + against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To have found God truly does + in itself make God’s service one’s essential motive, but these evils lurk + in the shadows, in the lassitudes and unwary moments. No one escapes them + altogether, there is no need for tragic moods on account of imperfections. + We can no more serve God without blunders and set-backs than we can win + battles without losing men. But the less of such loss the better. The + servant of God must keep his mind as wide and sound and his motives as + clean as he can, just as an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and + muscles as fit and his hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously + evade exercise and regular washing—of mind as of hands. An incessant + watchfulness of one’s self and one’s thoughts and the soundness of one’s + thoughts; cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and + prejudice, careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; + these are the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to + God will, as a matter of course, set before himself. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + </p> + <p> + Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will be more + convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present pursue the idea + of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment he calls us. This + kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all mankind upon + certain divine ends. These, we conceive, are first, the maintenance of the + racial life; secondly, the exploration of the external being of nature as + it is and as it has been, that is to say history and science; thirdly, + that exploration of inherent human possibility which is art; fourthly, + that clarification of thought and knowledge which is philosophy; and + finally, the progressive enlargement and development of the racial life + under these lights, so that God may work through a continually better body + of humanity and through better and better equipped minds, that he and our + race may increase for ever, working unendingly upon the development of the + powers of life and the mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout + the deeps of space. He sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer + ourselves and our world and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can + as yet see nothing, our imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of + our understanding is the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from + us. . . . + </p> + <p> + It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality that + the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden. . . . + </p> + <p> + But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of this + earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives must fall + and our consciences adapt themselves. + </p> + <p> + Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost necessarily a + conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. Each believer as he + grasps this natural and immediate consequence of the faith that has come + into his life will form at the same time a Utopian conception of this + world changed in the direction of God’s purpose. The vision will follow + the realisation of God’s true nature and purpose as a necessary second + step. And he will begin to develop the latent citizen of this world-state + in himself. He will fall in with the idea of the world-wide sanities of + this new order being drawn over the warring outlines of the present, and + of men falling out of relationship with the old order and into + relationship with the new. Many men and women are already working to-day + at tasks that belong essentially to God’s kingdom, tasks that would be of + the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; for example, + they are doing or sustaining scientific research or education or creative + art; they are making roads to bring men together, they are doctors working + for the world’s health, they are building homes, they are constructing + machinery to save and increase the powers of men. . . . + </p> + <p> + Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will + change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a little + while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come in chiefly + from the west, to become open and confessed servants of God. This work + that they were doing for ambition, or the love of men or the love of + knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to the work itself, or for + money or honour or country or king, they will realise they are doing for + God and by the power of God. Self-transformation into a citizen of God’s + kingdom and a new realisation of all earthly politics as no more than the + struggle to define and achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, follow on, + without any need for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the moment when God + and the believer meet and clasp one another. + </p> + <p> + This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely + fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such general + theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. But to anyone + who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a little from the + obsession of existing but transitory things, it ceases to be a mere + suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly the real future of + mankind. From the phase of “so things should be,” the mind will pass very + rapidly to the realisation that “so things will be.” Towards this the + directive wills among men have been drifting more and more steadily and + perceptibly and with fewer eddyings and retardations, for many centuries. + The purpose of mankind will not be always thus confused and fragmentary. + This dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the warring tribes + and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries or so ago, draws + to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a metaphor, not a mere + spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain project; it is the thing + before us, it is the close and inevitable destiny of mankind. + </p> + <p> + In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading about the + world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears here and there + to-day, like that little twittering of birds which comes before the dawn, + will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In but a few centuries the whole + world will be openly, confessedly, preparing for the kingdom. In but a few + centuries God will have led us out of the dark forest of these present + wars and confusions into the open brotherhood of his rule. + </p> + <p> + 6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + </p> + <p> + This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation at + thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, partisan, + nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into the coherent + development of the world kingdom of God, provides the form into which + everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will naturally seek to fit his + every thought and activity. The material greeds, the avarice, fear, + rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a disordered world will be challenged + and examined under one general question: “What am I in the kingdom of + God?” + </p> + <p> + It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing number of + occupations that belong already to God’s kingdom, research, teaching, + creative art, creative administration, cultivation, construction, + maintenance, and the honest satisfaction of honest practical human needs. + For such people conversion to the intimacy of God means at most a change + in the spirit of their work, a refreshed energy, a clearer understanding, + a new zeal, a completer disregard of gains and praises and promotion. Pay, + honours, and the like cease to be the inducement of effort. Service, and + service alone, is the criterion that the quickened conscience will + recognise. + </p> + <p> + Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which service is + mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service is a little + warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by mercenary and + commercial considerations, by some inherent or special degradation of + purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer rest until his life + is readjusted and as far as possible freed from the waste of these base + diversions. For example a scientific investigator, lit and inspired by + great inquiries, may be hampered by the conditions of his professorship or + research fellowship, which exact an appearance of “practical” results. Or + he may be obliged to lecture or conduct classes. He may be able to give + but half his possible gift to the work of his real aptitude, and that at a + sacrifice of money and reputation among short-sighted but influential + contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature an investigator he will know that + the research is what God needs of him. He cannot continue it at all if he + leaves his position, and so he must needs waste something of his gift to + save the rest. But should a poorer or a humbler post offer him better + opportunity, there lies his work for God. There one has a very common and + simple type of the problems that will arise in the lives of men when they + are lit by sudden realisation of the immediacy of God. + </p> + <p> + Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician between + the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one hand, and the + lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy people on the other. + He belongs to a profession that is crippled by a mediaeval code, a + profession which was blind to the common interest of the Public Health and + regarded its members merely as skilled practitioners employed to “cure” + individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of the + profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of devoted + men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as a whole, + broadening out from the frowsy den of the “leech,” with its crocodile and + bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and illuminating + co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing and economic + life of the community. + </p> + <p> + And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble of + the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and his + divine impulse on the other. + </p> + <p> + The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every decision + that must be made by men and women in these more or less vitiated, but + still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + </p> + <p> + The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a man + who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business enterprise or + the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need of manufactures and + that goods should be distributed; land must be administered and new + economic possibilities developed. The drift of things is in the direction + of state ownership and control, but in a great number of cases the state + is not ripe for such undertakings, it commands neither sufficient + integrity nor sufficient ability, and the proprietor of factory, store, + credit or land, must continue in possession, holding as a trustee for God + and, so far as lies in his power, preparing for his supersession by some + more public administration. Modern religion admits of no facile flights + from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort to the wilderness and + sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts among scorpions in a cave + as no better than a deserter in hiding. It unhesitatingly forbids any rich + young man to sell all that he has and give to the poor. Himself and all + that he has must be alike dedicated to God. + </p> + <p> + The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and of + every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes aware of + God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the maximum of + possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the least private + profit. He may set aside a salary for his maintenance; the rest he must + deal with like a zealous public official. And if he perceives that the + affair could be better administered by other hands than his own, then it + is his business to get it into those hands with the smallest delay and the + least profit to himself. . . . + </p> + <p> + The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right and + wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has a RIGHT to + his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man is not justified in + drawing the profits from an advantageous agreement nor free to spend the + profits of a speculation as he will. God takes no heed of savings nor of + abstinence. He recognises no right to the “rewards of abstinence,” no + right to any rewards. Those profits and comforts and consolations are the + inducements that dangle before the eyes of the spiritually blind. Wealth + is an embarrassment to the religious, for God calls them to account for + it. The servant of God has no business with wealth or power except to use + them immediately in the service of God. Finding these things in his hands + he is bound to administer them in the service of God. + </p> + <p> + The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged communism of + the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the scribes and + Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and bones and house and + acres, he takes skill and influence and expectations. For all the rest of + your life you are nothing but God’s agent. If you are not prepared for so + complete a surrender, then you are infinitely remote from God. You must go + your way. Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps you have been + desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as a possession. You have + not begun to understand. This that we are discussing in this book is as + yet nothing for you. + </p> + <p> + 7. ADJUSTING LIFE + </p> + <p> + This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this present + world and the discovery and realisation of one’s own place and work in and + for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase in the development of + the believer. He will set about revising and adjusting his scheme of life, + his ways of living, his habits and his relationships in the light of his + new convictions. + </p> + <p> + Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain + righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap only + in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind that have + brought them to God will already have brought their lives into a certain + rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there will be someone + to whom the self-examination that follows conversion will reveal an + entirely wrong and evil way of living. It may be that the light has come + to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable routine. Or to + someone following some highly profitable and amusing, but socially useless + or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an advocate at the disposal + of any man’s purpose, or an actor or actress ready to fall in with any + theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may find herself a prostitute or a pet + wife, a mere kept instrument of indulgence. These are lives of prey, these + are lives of futility; the light of God will not tolerate such lives. Here + religion can bring nothing but a severance from the old way of life + altogether, a break and a struggle towards use and service and dignity. + </p> + <p> + But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong the + new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the old. Every + sort of experience that has ever come to a human being is in the self that + he brings to God, and there is no reason why a knowledge of evil ways + should not determine the path of duty. No one can better devise + protections against vices than those who have practised them; none know + temptations better than those who have fallen. If a man has followed an + evil trade, it becomes him to use his knowledge of the tricks of that + trade to help end it. He knows the charities it may claim and the remedies + it needs. . . . + </p> + <p> + A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of + adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under + contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the opportunity + for examining the relation of an ordinary self-respecting worldly life, to + life under the dispensation of God discovered. A barrister is usually a + man of some energy and ambition, his honour is moulded by the traditions + of an ancient and antiquated profession, instinctively self-preserving and + yet with a real desire for consistency and respect. As a profession it has + been greedy and defensively conservative, but it has never been shameless + nor has it ever broken faith with its own large and selfish, but quite + definite, propositions. It has never for instance had the shamelessness of + such a traditionless and undisciplined class as the early factory + organisers. It has never had the dull incoherent wickedness of the sort of + men who exploit drunkenness and the turf. It offends within limits. + Barristers can be, and are, disbarred. But it is now a profession + extraordinarily out of date; its code of honour derives from a time of + cruder and lower conceptions of human relationship. It apprehends the + State as a mere “ring” kept about private disputations; it has not begun + to move towards the modern conception of the collective enterprise as the + determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its business as a mere + play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or between men and men. + They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer wrongs, they evade + dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and compensations. The + primary business of the law is held to be decision in these wrangles, and + as wrangling is subject to artistic elaboration, the business of the + barrister is the business of a professional wrangler; he is a bravo in wig + and gown who fights the duels of ordinary men because they are incapable, + very largely on account of the complexities of legal procedure, of + fighting for themselves. His business is never to explore any fundamental + right in the matter. His business is to say all that can be said for his + client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said against his + client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain and the United + States of America is the judge, and whose habits and interests all incline + him to disregard the realities of the case in favour of the points in the + forensic game, then adjudicates upon the contest. . . . + </p> + <p> + Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern + conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the world is + openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court will exist only + to adjust the differing views of men as to the manner of their service to + God; the only right of action one man will have against another will be + that he has been prevented or hampered or distressed by the other in + serving God. The idea of the law court will have changed entirely from a + place of dispute, exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The + individual or some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON + GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against + the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of + legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. . . + . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not + otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and + administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity is + one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction that + it was not Christianity that took possession of the Roman empire, but an + imperial adventurer who took possession of an all too complaisant + Christianity. + </p> + <p> + Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the religious + from which they arose, it will have become evident that the essential work + of anyone who is conversant with the existing practice and literature of + the law and whose natural abilities are forensic, will lie in the + direction of reconstructing the theory and practice of the law in harmony + with modern conceptions, of making that theory and practice clear and + plain to ordinary men, of reforming the abuses of the profession by + working for the separation of bar and judiciary, for the amalgamation of + the solicitors and the barristers, and the like needed reforms. These are + matters that will probably only be properly set right by a quickening of + conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of men is the help and + service so necessary to the practical establishment of God’s kingdom, as + of men learned and experienced in the law. And there is no reason why for + the present an advocate should not continue to plead in the courts, + provided he does his utmost only to handle cases in which he believes he + can serve the right. Few righteous cases are ill-served by a frank + disposition on the part of lawyer and client to put everything before the + court. Thereby of course there arises a difficult case of conscience. What + if a lawyer, believing his client to be in the right, discovers him to be + in the wrong? He cannot throw up the case unless he has been scandalously + deceived, because so he would betray the confidence his client has put in + him to “see him through.” He has a right to “give himself away,” but not + to “give away” his client in this fashion. If he has a chance of a private + consultation I think he ought to do his best to make his client admit the + truth of the case and give in, but failing this he has no right to be + virtuous on behalf of another. No man may play God to another; he may + remonstrate, but that is the limit of his right. He must respect a + confidence, even if it is purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that + here the barrister is in a cleft stick, and that he must see the business + through according to the confidence his client has put in him—and + afterwards be as sorry as he may be if an injustice ensues. And also I + would suggest a lawyer may with a fairly good conscience defend a guilty + man as if he were innocent, to save him from unjustly heavy penalties. . . + . + </p> + <p> + This comparatively full discussion of the barrister’s problem has been + embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical fashion, just + those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in real life. Religious + conviction gives us a general direction, but it stands aside from many of + these entangled struggles in the jungle of conscience. Practice is often + easier than a rule. In practice a lawyer will know far more accurately + than a hypothetical case can indicate, how far he is bound to see his + client through, and how far he may play the keeper of his client’s + conscience. And nearly every day there happens instances where the most + subtle casuistry will fail and the finger of conscience point + unhesitatingly. One may have worried long in the preparation and + preliminaries of the issue, one may bring the case at last into the final + court of conscience in an apparently hopeless tangle. Then suddenly comes + decision. + </p> + <p> + The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man states + his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and the special + pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case lies bare and + plain. + </p> + <p> + 8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + </p> + <p> + The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in existing + governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with the acceptance + of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At the worst Caesar is a + usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at the best he is provisional. + Modern casuistry makes no great trouble for the believing public official. + The chief business of any believer is to do the work for which he is best + fitted, and since all state affairs are to become the affairs of God’s + kingdom it is of primary importance that they should come into the hands + of God’s servants. It is scarcely less necessary to a believing man with + administrative gifts that he should be in the public administration, than + that he should breathe and eat. And whatever oath or the like to usurper + church or usurper king has been set up to bar access to service, is an + oath imposed under duress. If it cannot be avoided it must be taken rather + than that a man should become unserviceable. All such oaths are unfair and + foolish things. They exclude no scoundrels; they are appeals to + superstition. Whenever an opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, + the servant of God will seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he + will take it. + </p> + <p> + The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of statement; + it is to do as much as one can of God’s work. + </p> + <p> + 9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + </p> + <p> + It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official and his + oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged minister of religion + who finds that faith in the true God has ousted his formal beliefs. + </p> + <p> + This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the intellectual life + of the last hundred years. It has been increasingly difficult for any + class of reading, talking, and discussing people such as are the bulk of + the priesthoods of the Christian churches to escape hearing and reading + the accumulated criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the popularly + accepted story of man’s fall and salvation. Some have no doubt defeated + this universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and honestly + established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the articles and + disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the creeds they profess + and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their positions in the + priesthood. But a great number have neither resisted the bacillus of + criticism nor left the churches to which they are attached. They have + adopted compromises, they have qualified their creeds with modifying + footnotes of essential repudiation; they have decided that plain + statements are metaphors and have undercut, transposed, and inverted the + most vital points of the vulgarly accepted beliefs. One may find within + the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, Atheists, disbelievers in + immortality, attenuators of miracles; there is scarcely a doubt or a cavil + that has not found a lodgment within the ample charity of the English + Establishment. I have been interested to hear one distinguished Canon + deplore that “they” did not identify the Logos with the third instead of + the second Person of the Trinity, and another distinguished Catholic + apologist declare his indifference to the “historical Jesus.” Within most + of the Christian communions one may believe anything or nothing, provided + only that one does not call too public an attention to one’s eccentricity. + The late Rev. Charles Voysey, for example, preached plainly in his church + at Healaugh against the divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only when + he published his sermons under the provocative title of “The Sling and the + Stone,” and caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that + he was indicted and deprived. + </p> + <p> + Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in + which they find themselves are often very plausible. It is probable that + in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious + dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child. It + has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development and + controversy that beliefs have been really sharp. A creed, like a coin, it + may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is worn, or + bears the image of a vanished king. The religious life is a reality that + has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of the priest or + minister is with the religious life and not with the poor symbols that may + indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact no more than + indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain that the church + and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of religion, that + the religious life is sustained not by its propositions but by its + routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of spiritual things + with professional divines, will find this is the substance of the case for + the ecclesiastical sceptic. His church, he will admit, mumbles its + statement of truth, but where else is truth? What better formulae are to + be found for ineffable things? And meanwhile—he does good. + </p> + <p> + That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess the + worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a matter of + ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy to + understand. + </p> + <p> + Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. If a + professional religious has any justification at all for his + professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and greatness + of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are not + proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion of what + should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a priest pretend to do + when his primary business is the truth and his method a lie? The oaths and + incidental conformities of men who wish to serve God in the state are on a + different footing altogether from the falsehood and mischief of one who + knows the true God and yet recites to a trustful congregation, foists upon + a trustful congregation, a misleading and ill-phrased Levantine creed. + </p> + <p> + Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of his + temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every ordained + priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that he has truly + realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to repeat his creed + again. His course seems plain and clear. It becomes him to stand up before + the flock he has led in error, and to proclaim the being and nature of the + one true God. He must be explicit to the utmost of his powers. Then he may + await his expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is sufficient for him to + go away silently, making false excuses or none at all for his retreat. He + has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of his conforming years. + </p> + <p> + 10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from God? + </p> + <p> + This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it + reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious + interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and the + Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion sweeps past + and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans and Methodists, + in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of God. Arminians seem + merely to have insisted that God has conditioned himself, and by his own + free act left men free to accept or reject salvation. To the realist type + of mind—here as always I use “realist” in its proper sense as the + opposite of nominalist—to the old-fashioned, over-exact and + over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague and + unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of + intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not + Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that there + is no clear line to be drawn between the saved and the lost. Realists like + an exclusive flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a natural weakness of + humanity to be forced into extreme positions by argument. It is probable, + as I have already suggested, that the absolute attributes of God were + forced upon Christianity under the stresses of propaganda, and it is + probable that the theory of a super-human obstinancy beyond salvation + arose out of the irritations natural to theological debate. It is but a + step from the realisation that there are people absolutely unable or + absolutely unwilling to see God as we see him, to the conviction that they + are therefore shut off from God by an invincible soul blindness. + </p> + <p> + It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there are + those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our experience. + They are people answering to the “hard-hearted,” to the “stiff-necked + generation” of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and even confess to + standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They show themselves incapable + of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty or truth or goodness. They are + altogether remote from intelligent sacrifice. To every test they betray + vileness of texture; they are mean, cold, wicked. There are people who + seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are ever ready to do harsh + and cruel things, whose use for social feeling is the malignant boycott, + and for prosperity, monopolisation and humiliating display; who seize upon + religion and turn it into persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on + the altars of some joyless vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no + use for them, and it is very easy indeed to step from that persuasion to + the belief that God has no use for them. + </p> + <p> + And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the people + with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the few broad + and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we experience, who + lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful conceptions of God, and are + apparently quite incapable of distinguishing between what is practically + and what is spiritually good. + </p> + <p> + It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way to + God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which we of + course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper or the + pickpocket or the “smart” woman or the loan-monger or the village oaf than + he is of the swine in the sty. But are we justified in thus limiting God + to the measure of our moral and intellectual understandings? Because some + people seem to me steadfastly and consistently base or hopelessly and + incurably dull and confused, does it follow that there are not phases, + albeit I have never chanced to see them, of exaltation in the one case and + illumination in the other? And may I not be a little restricting my + perception of Good? While I have been ready enough to pronounce this or + that person as being, so far as I was concerned, thoroughly damnable or + utterly dull, I find a curious reluctance to admit the general proposition + which is necessary for these instances. It is possible that the difference + between Arminian and Calvinist is a difference of essential intellectual + temperament rather than of theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally + Arminian as I am temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the + nature of God to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can + only suspect, and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + </p> + <p> + Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you think, + as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and damned, then I + cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other people can be damned. But + that is not to believe that there are people damned at the outset by their + moral and intellectual insufficiency; that is not to make out that there + is a class of essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The religious + life preceded clear religious understanding and extends far beyond its + range. + </p> + <p> + In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to true + belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. The + essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. I am + passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own mind, and to + make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and particularly to other + people who may seem to be feeling with me; I do perceive that error is + evil if only because a faith based on confused conceptions and partial + understandings may suffer irreparable injury through the collapse of its + substratum of ideas. I doubt if faith can be complete and enduring if it + is not secured by the definite knowledge of the true God. Yet I have also + to admit that I find the form of my own religious emotion paralleled by + people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy and no agreement in + phrase or formula at all. + </p> + <p> + There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling and this + discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as myself and a + convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself in phrases and images + of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs and fountains of precious + blood, a most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom to me, and expressing + itself by shouts, clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and rhythmic + pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object sought, + release from self, and the same end, the end of identification with the + immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. I see God + indubitably present in these excitements, and I see personalities I could + easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for spiritual + understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. One may be led + into the absurdest underestimates of religious possibilities if one + estimates people only coldly and in the light of everyday life. There is a + sub-intellectual religious life which, very conceivably, when its utmost + range can be examined, excludes nothing human from religious cooperation, + which will use any words to its tune, which takes its phrasing ready-made + from the world about it, as it takes the street for its temple, and yet + which may be at its inner point in the directest contact with God. + Religion may suffer from aphasia and still be religion; it may utter + misleading or nonsensical words and yet intend and convey the truth. The + methods of the Salvation Army are older than doctrinal Christianity, and + may long survive it. Men and women may still chant of Beulah Land and cry + out in the ecstasy of salvation; the tambourine, that modern revival of + the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, may still stir dull nerves to a first + apprehension of powers and a call beyond the immediate material compulsion + of life, when the creeds of Christianity are as dead as the lore of the + Druids. + </p> + <p> + The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies may be + accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release among types and + strata that by the standards of a trained and explicit intellectual, may + seem spiritually hopeless. It is not necessary to imagine the whole world + critical and lucid in order to imagine the whole world unified in + religious sentiment, comprehending the same phrases and coming together + regardless of class and race and quality, in the worship and service of + the true God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than hieratic + tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head grows clear the + body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of men modern religion + says, “This is the God it has always been in your nature to apprehend.” + </p> + <p> + 11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + </p> + <p> + Now that we are discussing the general question of individual conduct, it + will be convenient to take up again and restate in that relationship, + propositions already made very plainly in the second and third chapters. + Here there are several excellent reasons for a certain amount of + deliberate repetition. . . . + </p> + <p> + All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with + religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a part in + most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern faith. Let us be + as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned by the health and fitness + and vigour of his servants; we owe him our best and utmost; but he has no + special concern and no special preferences or commandments regarding + sexual things. + </p> + <p> + Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he + welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in + adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand between him + and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity of the creeds, in + this as in so many respects, does not rise to the level of its founder, + and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as though the name of Christ had + not been ascendant for nineteen centuries, that sex is a secondary thing + to religion, and sexual status of no account in the presence of God. It + follows quite logically that God does not discriminate between man and + woman in any essential things. We leave our individuality behind us when + we come into the presence of God. Sex is not disavowed but forgotten. Just + as one’s last meal is forgotten—which also is a difference between + the religious moment of modern faith and certain Christian sacraments. You + are a believer and God is at hand to you; heed not your state; reach out + to him and he is there. In the moment of religion you are human; it + matters not what else you are, male or female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or + Gentile, bond or free. It is AFTER the moment of religion that we become + concerned about our state and the manner in which we use ourselves. + </p> + <p> + We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual treatment + of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the king of the + whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and all things. He is + not particularly concerned about any aspect, because he is concerned about + every aspect. We have to make the best use of ourselves for his kingdom; + that is our rule of life. That rule means neither painful nor frantic + abstinences nor any forced way of living. Purity, cleanliness, health, + none of these things are for themselves, they are for use; none are magic, + all are means. The sword must be sharp and clean. That does not mean that + we are perpetually to sharpen and clean it—which would weaken and + waste the blade. The sword must neither be drawn constantly nor always + rusting in its sheath. Those who have had the wits and soul to come to + God, will have the wits and soul to find out and know what is waste, what + is vanity, what is the happiness that begets strength of body and spirit, + what is error, where vice begins, and to avoid and repent and recoil from + all those things that degrade. These are matters not of the rule of life + but of the application of life. They must neither be neglected nor made + disproportionally important. + </p> + <p> + To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It is + difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can be very + fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also linked to + God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and the changes of years + they can be held steadfast by his undying steadfastness. But it has been + felt by many deep-feeling people that there is so much kindred between the + love and trust of husband and wife and the feeling we have for God, that + it is reasonable to consider the former also as a sacred thing. They do so + value that close love of mated man and woman, they are so intent upon its + permanence and completeness and to lift the dear relationship out of the + ruck of casual and transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it + were, into the very presence and assent of God. There are many who dream + and desire that they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more + who would fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest + desire to make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the + world the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of + such a sacramental union. + </p> + <p> + There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only after + years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by vows and + promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and spirit; and + it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it, and God. And + the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like the love of God, + is, even then, not the relationship of the man and woman as man and woman + but the comradeship and trust and mutual help and pity that joins them. No + doubt that from the mutual necessities of bodily love and the common + adventure, the necessary honesties and helps of a joint life, there + springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and best of human + companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of mortal + comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary coming + together and pairing off of men and women is in itself divine or + sacramental or anything of the sort. Being in love is a condition that may + have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part an + experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often love + only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is greed, it + is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, it is the + instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is adventure, it + is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores ‘lovers’ meet and part. + Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God in themselves or + others. + </p> + <p> + Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no reason + why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness should be made + an obligation upon all men and women who are attracted by one another, nor + why it should be woven into the essentials of religion. For women much + more than for men is this confusion dangerous, lest a personal love should + shape and dominate their lives instead of God. “He for God only; she for + God in him,” phrases the idea of Milton and of ancient Islam; it is the + formula of sexual infatuation, a formula quite easily inverted, as the end + of Goethe’s Faust (“The woman soul leadeth us upward and on”) may witness. + The whole drift of modern religious feeling is against this exaggeration + of sexual feeling, these moods of sexual slavishness, in spiritual things. + Between the healthy love of ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of + God, there is an essential contrast and opposition in this, that + preference, exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of + the former and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is + the intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the + latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It may + be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest + unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and + romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they + have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved for + God and a devotion that is normally evoked only by little children in + their mother’s heart. It is not the way between most of the men and women + one meets in this world. + </p> + <p> + But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is nothing + else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SIXTH + </h2> + <h3> + MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + </p> + <p> + If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain and + read Metchnikoff’s “Nature of Man,” he will find there an interesting + summary of the biological facts that bear upon and destroy the delusion + that there is such a thing as individual perfection, that there is even + ideal perfection for humanity. With an abundance of convincing instances + Professor Metchnikoff demonstrates that life is a system of + “disharmonies,” capable of no perfect way, that there is no “perfect” + dieting, no “perfect” sexual life, no “perfect” happiness, no “perfect” + conduct. He releases one from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption + that there is even an ideal “perfection” in organic life. He sweeps out of + the mind with all the confidence and conviction of a physiological + specialist, any idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable perfect + man. It is in the nature of every man to fall short at every point from + perfection. From the biological point of view we are as individuals a + series of involuntary “tries” on the part of an imperfect species towards + an unknown end. + </p> + <p> + Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. We are + disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to the defects of + our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our teeth or to those + vestigial structures of our body that endanger our physical welfare. + Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not an inch to our + spiritual and moral stature. + </p> + <p> + 2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + </p> + <p> + Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by the + term “damnation,” in the light of this view of human reality. Most of the + great world religions are as clear as Professor Metchnikoff that life in + the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and in most cases they supply a + more or less myth-like explanation, they declare that evil is one side of + the conflict between Ahriman and Ormazd, or that it is the punishment of + an act of disobedience, of the fall of man and world alike from a state of + harmony. Their case, like his, is that THIS world is damned. + </p> + <p> + We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this world + there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after death, so + nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear to be an exploit + of theory; they have a superadded appearance even in the Christian system; + the same common tendency to superlatives and absolutes that makes men + ashamed to admit that God is finite, makes them seek to enhance the merits + of their Saviour by the device of everlasting fire. Conquest over the + sorrow of life and the fear of death do not seem to them sufficient for + Christ’s glory. + </p> + <p> + Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the universe + as something derived deductively from the past to a conception of it as + something gathering itself adventurously towards the future, involves a + release from the supposed necessity to tell a story and explain why. + Instead comes the inquiry, “To what end?” We can say without mental + discomfort, these disharmonies are here, this damnation is here—inexplicably. + We can, without any distressful inquiry into ultimate origins, bring our + minds to the conception of a spontaneous and developing God arising out of + those stresses in our hearts and in the universe, and arising to overcome + them. Salvation for the individual is escape from the individual distress + at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. + And damnation can be nothing more and nothing less than the failure or + inability or disinclination to make that escape. + </p> + <p> + Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for salvation + has crept at a number of points into contemporary religious thought. It + was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the damned go to their own hells of + their own accord. It underlies a queer poem, “Simpson,” by that + interesting essayist upon modern Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which I + have recently read. Simpson dies and goes to hell—it is rather like + the Cromwell Road—and approves of it very highly, and then and then + only is he completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is + certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock’s idea. It is his definition of + damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is damnation. It is surrender + to limitation; it is acquiescence in “disharmony”; it is making peace with + that enemy against whom God fights for ever. + </p> + <p> + (But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for ever + remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous chapter, a + quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me from the Calvinistic + conclusion of Mr. Brock’s satire.) + </p> + <p> + 3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + </p> + <p> + Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by + nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, as we + have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is an incident. + One is an essential and the other an incidental separation from God. It is + possible to sin without being damned; and to be damned is to be in a state + when sin scarcely matters, like ink upon a blackamoor. You cannot have + questions of more or less among absolute things. + </p> + <p> + It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as + the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always in + touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever have any + motive again that is not also God’s motive. Then one finds oneself caught + unawares by a base impulse. We discover that discontinuousness of our + apparently homogeneous selves, the unincorporated and warring elements + that seemed at first altogether absent from the synthesis of conversion. + We are tripped up by forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by + tricks of appearance. There come dull patches of existence; those + mysterious obliterations of one’s finer sense that are due at times to the + little minor poisons one eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill-health + and bodily disorder, or one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of + emotion, brewed deep in the animal being and released by any trifling + accident, such as personal jealousy or lust, or one is relaxed by + contentment into vanity. All these rebel forces of our ill-coordinated + selves, all these “disharmonies,” of the inner being, snatch us away from + our devotion to God’s service, carry us off to follies, offences, + unkindness, waste, and leave us compromised, involved, and regretful, + perplexed by a hundred difficulties we have put in our own way back to + God. + </p> + <p> + This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God can help + us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such reparation as we + can, to begin the battle again further back and lower down. From God comes + the power to anticipate the struggle with one’s rebel self, and to resist + and prevail over it. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + </p> + <p> + An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + </p> + <p> + It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several + lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper in these + institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or selected in + some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go out to their + addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and as the author of + various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that is, to any one much + forced back upon reading, the writer is particularly accessible to this + type of correspondent. The letters come, some manifesting a hopeless + disorder that permits of no reply, but some being the expression of minds + overlaid not at all offensively by a web of fantasy, and some (and these + are the more touching ones and the ones that most concern us now) as + sanely conceived and expressed as any letters could be. They are written + by people living lives very like the lives of us who are called “sane,” + except that they lift to a higher excitement and fall to a lower + depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or melancholia slip + the leash of mental consistency altogether and take abnormal forms. They + tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the safer ways of mediocrity do + but glimpse under the influence of drugs, or in dreams and rare moments of + controllable extravagance. Then the insane become “glorious,” or they + become murderous, or they become suicidal. All these letter-writers in + confinement have convinced their fellow-creatures by some extravagance + that they are a danger to themselves or others. + </p> + <p> + The letters that come from such types written during their sane intervals, + are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware—I think they + should know—of the offences or possibilities that justify their + incarceration, write with a certain resentment at their position; others + are entirely acquiescent, but one or two complain of the neglect of + friends and relations. But all are as manifestly capable of religion and + of the religious life as any other intelligent persons during the lucid + interludes that make up nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . Suppose + now one of these cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes the form of + some cruel, disgusting, or destructive disposition that may become at + times overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with sinful + tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that the mania + which defines his position must be the primary if not the cardinal + business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with that is different + not in kind but merely in degree from the problem of lusts, vanities, and + weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It is an unconquered tract, a + great rebel province in his being, which refuses to serve God and tries to + prevent him serving God, and succeeds at times in wresting his capital out + of his control. But his relationship to that is the same relationship as + ours to the backward and insubordinate parishes, criminal slums, and + disorderly houses in our own private texture. + </p> + <p> + It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only the + better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered disposition in + him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is obliged to be the + keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His beast gets loose. His + only resort is to warn those about him when he feels that jangling or + excitement of the nerves which precedes its escapes, to limit its range, + to place weapons beyond its reach. And there are plenty of human beings + very much in his case, whose beasts have never got loose or have got + caught back before their essential insanity was apparent. And there are + those uncertifiable lunatics we call men and women of “impulse” and + “strong passions.” If perhaps they have more self-control than the really + mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent being + falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than the + obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; + nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the sedulous + preparation of defences and palliatives against the return of the storm. + </p> + <p> + This discussion of the lunatic’s case gives us indeed, usefully coarse and + large, the lines for the treatment of every human weakness by the servants + of God. A “weakness,” just like the lunatic’s mania, becomes a particular + charge under God, a special duty for the person it affects. He has to + minimise it, to isolate it, to keep it out of mischief. If he can he must + adopt preventive measures. . . . + </p> + <p> + These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our usefulness + to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, they wound our + self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who would trust us, they + discredit the faith we profess. If they break through and break through + again it is natural and proper that men and women should cease to believe + in our faith, cease to work with us or to meet us frankly. . . . Our sins + do everything evil to us and through us except separate us from God. + </p> + <p> + Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a power. Here + God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of God in his heart can + defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and undaunted after a hundred + falls, escape from the grip of lusts and revenges, make head against + despair, thrust back the very onset of madness. He is still the same man + he was before he came to God, still with his libidinous, vindictive, + boastful, or indolent vein; but now his will to prevail over those + qualities can refer to an exterior standard and an external interest, he + can draw upon a strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + </p> + <p> + 5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + </p> + <p> + But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found God. + You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment you truly + repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation as is possible + there remains no barrier between you and God. Directly you cease to hide + or deny or escape, and turn manfully towards the consequences and the + setting of things right, you take hold again of the hand of God. Though + you sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest of + you. Nothing but utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off from + God. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that it can + shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you but lift up your + head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness and cry to him, God is + there, God will not fail you. A convicted criminal, frankly penitent, and + neither obdurate nor abject, whatever the evil of his yesterdays, may + still die well and bravely on the gallows to the glory of God. He may step + straight from that death into the immortal being of God. + </p> + <p> + This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. There + is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can stand + between God and man. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE WORLD DAWN + </p> + <p> + As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new + religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations are + still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the continuance + of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. There are many + signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be coming as swiftly + as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may seem at present as + though nothing very much were happening, except for the fact that the old + familiar constellations of theology have become a little pallid and lost + something of their multitude of points. But nothing fades of itself. The + deep stillness of the late night is broken by a stirring, and the morning + star of creedless faith, the last and brightest of the stars, the star + that owes its light to the coming sun is in the sky. + </p> + <p> + There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir before + a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the bluster of + the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God without any + reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. The Deists and + Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never did that. Their + “Supreme Being” repudiated nothing. He was merely the whittled stump of + the Trinity. It is in the last few decades that the western mind has + slipped loose from this absolutist conception of God that has dominated + the intelligence of Christendom at least, for many centuries. Almost + unconsciously the new thought is taking a course that will lead it far + away from the moorings of Omnipotence. It is like a ship that has slipped + its anchors and drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and vanishing + stars, out to the open sea. . . . + </p> + <p> + 2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + </p> + <p> + In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this renascent + faith. + </p> + <p> + For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief in an + infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds trained + under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which have hitherto + been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between pseudo-Christian + religion or denial, but also it opens the way towards the completest + understanding and sympathy and participation with the kindred movements + for release and for an intensification of the religious life, that are + going on outside the sphere of the Christian tradition and influence + altogether. Allusion has already been made to the sympathetic devotional + poetry of Rabindranath Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism + parallel with and assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + </p> + <p> + It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is + entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an evil + entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is too easily + assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with renunciation, not + merely of self but of being, with the escape from all effort of any sort + into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed neither the spirit of China nor of + Islam nor of the every-day life of any people in the world. It is not the + spirit of the Sikh nor of these newer developments of Hindu thought. It + has never been the spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia seem + disposed to give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as + Europeans, do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we can + live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain by + escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not a nation + nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at this moment by + the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of God. This is not an age + of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in all the world besides. + </p> + <p> + Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that which + ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are being thrust + aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the spirit and + intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a heart-searching + Dialogue of the Dead, “How we settled our religions for ever and ever,” + between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and one of Nizam-al-Mulk’s tame + theologians. They would be drawn together by the same tribulations; they + would be in the closest sympathy against the temerity of the moderns; they + would have a common courtliness. The Quran is but little read by + Europeans; it is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that it does + not contain; there is much confusion in people’s minds between its text + and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its followers; + in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it has chiefly to + tell of is the leadership of one individualised militant God who claims + the rule of the whole world, who favours neither rank nor race, who would + lead men to righteousness. It is much more free from sacramentalism, from + vestiges of the ancient blood sacrifice, and its associated sacerdotalism, + than Christianity. The religion that will presently sway mankind can be + reached more easily from that starting-point than from the confused + mysteries of Trinitarian theology. Islam was never saddled with a creed. + With the very name “Islam” (submission to God) there is no quarrel for + those who hold the new faith. . . . + </p> + <p> + All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the old + beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, its + Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its “religion without theology,” its + attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to that + living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human mind almost + instinctively insists. . . . + </p> + <p> + It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the same + God. + </p> + <p> + So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and incidental + and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective to-day, may be and + most probably will be, in quite a few years a great flood of religious + unanimity pouring over and changing all human affairs, sweeping away the + old priesthoods and tabernacles and symbols and shrines, the last crumb of + the Orphic victim and the last rag of the Serapeum, and turning all men + about into one direction, as the ships and houseboats swing round together + in some great river with the uprush of the tide. . . . + </p> + <p> + 3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + </p> + <p> + Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and identities of + the revived religion that has returned to them, certain questions of + organisation and assembly are being discussed. Every new religious + development is haunted by the precedents of the religion it replaces, and + it was only to be expected that among those who have recovered their faith + there should be a search for apostles and disciples, an attempt to + determine sources and to form original congregations, especially among + people with European traditions. + </p> + <p> + These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are imitative. + This time there has been no revelation here or there; there is no claim to + a revelation but simply that God has become visible. Men have thought and + sought until insensibly the fog of obsolete theology has cleared away. + There seems no need therefore for special teachers or a special + propaganda, or any ritual or observances that will seem to insist upon + differences. The Christian precedent of a church is particularly + misleading. The church with its sacraments and its sacerdotalism is the + disease of Christianity. Save for a few doubtful interpolations there is + no evidence that Christ tolerated either blood sacrifices or the mysteries + of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses were superadded after his + martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a gospel; he sent out not medicine + men but apostles. + </p> + <p> + No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They become + naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each will be + disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour’s attention to what he + sees. The necessary elements of religion could be written on a post card; + this book, small as it is, bulks large not by what it tells positively but + because it deals with misconceptions. We may (little doubt have I that we + do) need special propagandas and organisations to discuss errors and keep + back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free speech and restrain the + enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want a church to keep our + faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for that there is no need for + orthodoxies and controlling organisations of statement. It is for each man + to follow his own impulse, and to speak to his like in his own fashion. + </p> + <p> + Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name of + the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge of + religion. + </p> + <p> + The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation in + dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the + unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by robes + and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom Christ + detested and denounced, is full of warning against the dangers of a + church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the material needs of men, + for the draining of towns, the marshalling of traffic, the collecting of + eggs, and the carrying of letters, the distribution of bread, the + notification of measles, for hygiene and economics and suchlike affairs. + The better we organise such things, the freer and better equipped we leave + men’s minds for nobler purposes, for those adventures and experiments + towards God’s purpose which are the reality of life. But all organisations + must be watched, for whatever is organised can be “captured” and misused. + Repentance, moreover, is the beginning and essential of the religious + life, and organisations (acting through their secretaries and officials) + never repent. God deals only with the individual for the individual’s + surrender. He takes no cognisance of committees. + </p> + <p> + Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are most + mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together is to + purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to strengthen one’s + sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of mankind. Before you know + where you are you will have exchanged the spirit of God for ESPRIT DE + CORPS. You will have reinvented the SYMBOL; you will have begun to keep + anniversaries and establish sacramental ceremonies. The disposition to + form cliques and exclude and conspire against unlike people is all too + strong in humanity, to permit of its formal encouragement. Even such + organisation as is implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living + faith coagulates as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so much + as a definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for worship + and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of little manifest + good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and place for God to irradiate + your soul. + </p> + <p> + All these are very valid objections to the church-forming disposition. + </p> + <p> + 4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + </p> + <p> + Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out about God. + They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + </p> + <p> + Why should they not shout and share? + </p> + <p> + Let them express all that they desire to express in their own fashion by + themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. Let them shout + chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a gang if so they can + work the better. But let them guard themselves against the idea that they + can have God particularly or exclusively with them in any such + undertaking. Or that so they can express God rather than themselves. + </p> + <p> + That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the idea of + a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of altars, away from + the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical cannibalism, beyond the + sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the modern spirit holds that + religion cannot be organised or any intermediary thrust between God and + man, that does not preclude infinite possibilities of organisation and + collective action UNDER God and within the compass of religion. There is + no reason why religious men should not band themselves the better to + attain specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, there is no + objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not against + subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations that may + claim to be comprehensive. + </p> + <p> + For example there is no reason why one should not—and in many cases + there are good reasons why one should—organise or join associations + for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass very + readily into propaganda. + </p> + <p> + Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves and + to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not merely prayer + but formal prayer and the support of others, praying in unison. The writer + does not understand this desire or need for collective prayer very well, + but there are people who appear to do so and there is no reason why they + should not assemble for that purpose. And there is no doubt that divine + poetry, divine maxims, religious thought finely expressed, may be heard, + rehearsed, collected, published, and distributed by associations. The + desire for expression implies a sort of assembly, a hearer at least as + well as a speaker. And expression has many forms. People with a strong + artistic impulse will necessarily want to express themselves by art when + religion touches them, and many arts, architecture and the drama for + example, are collective undertakings. I do not see why there should not + be, under God, associations for building cathedrals and suchlike great + still places urgent with beauty, into which men and women may go to rest + from the clamour of the day’s confusions; I do not see why men should not + make great shrines and pictures expressing their sense of divine things, + and why they should not combine in such enterprises rather than work to + fill heterogeneous and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival + and religious clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly bring + with it a great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, and writings + of all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying places, temples and + retreats, the creation of pictures and sculptures. It is not necessary to + have priestcraft and an organised church for such ends. Such enrichments + of feeling and thought are part of the service of God. + </p> + <p> + And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities for + research in pure science; associations for the teaching and simplification + of languages; associations for promoting and watching education; + associations for the discussion of political problems and the + determination of right policies. In all these ways men may multiply their + use by union. Only when associations seek to control things of belief, to + dictate formulae, restrict religious activities or the freedom of + religious thought and teaching, when they tend to subdivide those who + believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, do they become + antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE STATE IS GOD’S INSTRUMENT + </p> + <p> + Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and + immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow that + religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed essential + to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round world and all + mankind, that we should see in every government, great and small, from the + council of the world-state that is presently coming, down to the village + assembly, the instrument of God’s practical control. Religion which is + free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to a perpetual + unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of the whole + organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there will be no + church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state is God’s + church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you leave conscience + and speech and writing and teaching about divine things absolutely free, + and that you try to set no nets about God. + </p> + <p> + The world is God’s and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and we + find our freedom in him. + </p> + <p> + THE ENVOY + </p> + <p> + So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I believe + to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and spiritual + confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It is a statement and + record; not a theory. There is nothing in all this that has been invented + or constructed by the writer; I have been but scribe to the spirit of my + generation; I have at most assembled and put together things and thoughts + that I have come upon, have transferred the statements of “science” into + religious terminology, rejected obsolescent definitions, and + re-coordinated propositions that had drifted into opposition. Thus, I see, + ideas are developing, and thus have I written them down. It is a secondary + matter that I am convinced that this trend of intelligent opinion is a + discovery of truth. The reader is told of my own belief merely to avoid an + affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + </p> + <p> + The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing and + disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many different + schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is one that has + been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in the work of one I am + happy to write of as my friend and master, that very great American, the + late William James. It was an idea that became increasingly important to + him towards the end of his life. And it is the most releasing idea in the + system. + </p> + <p> + Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of these + present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to what is called + Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile Deism of the eighteenth + century, of “votre Etre supreme” who bored the friends of Robespierre, was + a sterile thing, it has little relation to these modern developments, it + conceived of God as an infinite Being of no particular character whereas + God is a finite being of a very especial character. On the other hand men + and women who have set themselves, with unavoidable theological + preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual teachings and + quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that have interwoven + insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a curious modernity + about very many of Christ’s recorded sayings. Revived religion has also, + no doubt, been the receiver of many religious bankruptcies, of Positivism + for example, which failed through its bleak abstraction and an unspiritual + texture. Religion, thus restated, must, I think, presently incorporate + great sections of thought that are still attached to formal Christianity. + The time is at hand when many of the organised Christian churches will be + forced to define their positions, either in terms that will identify them + with this renascence, or that will lead to the release of their more + liberal adherents. Its probable obligations to Eastern thought are less + readily estimated by a European writer. + </p> + <p> + Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the privilege and + possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it is appearing + simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a crystallising + substance appears here and there in a super-saturated solution. It is a + process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. It needs no other + guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but freedom, free speech, + and honest statement. Out of the most mixed and impure solutions a growing + crystal is infallibly able to select its substance. The diamond arises + bright, definite, and pure out of a dark matrix of structureless + confusion. + </p> + <p> + This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the advent + and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no authorities, no + teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and struggle among the + other things; simply it grows clear. There will be no putting an end to + it. It arrives inevitably, and it will continue to separate itself out + from confusing ideas. It becomes, as it were the Koh-i-noor; it is a + Mountain of Light, growing and increasing. It is an all-pervading + lucidity, a brightness and clearness. It has no head to smite, no body you + can destroy; it overleaps all barriers; it breaks out in despite of every + enclosure. It will compel all things to orient themselves to it. + </p> + <p> + It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be here + or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the day comes to + the ships that put to sea. + </p> + <p> + It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + </p> + <p> + THE END <br /> <br /> + </p> + <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1046 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6cd7616 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #1046 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1046) diff --git a/old/1046-0.txt b/old/1046-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..451441f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1046-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4394 @@ +Project Gutenberg’s God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God The Invisible King + +Author: Herbert George Wells + +Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1046] +Last Updated: September 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + +by H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + +1. THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + +2. HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + +3. THE LIKENESS OF GOD + +4. THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + +5. THE INVISIBLE KING + +6. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + +7. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + +THE ENVOY + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious +belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is +not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound +belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its +statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the +expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several particulars +opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be sympathetic with +all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is well to prepare the +prospective reader for statements that may jar harshly against deeply +rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him at the outset that the +departure from accepted beliefs is here no vague scepticism, but a quite +sharply defined objection to dogmas very widely revered. Let the writer +state the most probable occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon +which this book will be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma +of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, +which forcibly crystallised the controversies of two centuries and +formulated the creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are +based, was one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of +all religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations +which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only +disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief +possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for what +he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that undignified +gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory in this +connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, because he +believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the way of +those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of +exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at +the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing +the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from +among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible +to storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an +ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on +at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a believer, +but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more +sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer +cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is declaring that +there is a living God, different altogether from that Triune God and +nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book is like that of a +missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian +divinity of shark’s teeth and painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the +writer such elaborations as “begotten of the Father before all worlds” + are no better than intellectual shark’s teeth and oyster shells. His +purpose, like the purpose of that missionary, is not primarily to shock +and insult; but he is zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a +reverence that stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning +and proceeds with his matter. + +His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and +because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. + +In a previous book, “First and Last Things” (Constable and Co.), he has +stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought +as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that +is, seems to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and +individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the +opposition of the One and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the +Actual, all these oppositions express a certain structural and essential +duality in the activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition +of that duality ensue great masses of misconception. That was the +substance of “First and Last Things.” In this present book there is no +further attack on philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we +work at a less fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and +religious ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a +whole world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about +the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to think +that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a confusion +of intention due to a double meaning of the word “God”; that the word +“God” conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but several essentially +different ideas, incompatible one with another, and falling mainly into +one or other of two divergent groups; and that people slip carelessly +from one to the other of these groups of ideas and so get into +ultimately inextricable confusions. + +The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that +preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially +a struggle--obscured, of course, by many complexities--to reconcile and +get into a relationship these two separate main series of God-ideas. + +Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two +antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by +speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the +other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; +the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps developed most +highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a conception of God +tending to pantheism, to an idea of a comprehensive God as ruling +with justice rather than affection, to a conception of aloofness and +awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, which is opposed to this +idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human heart. The writer would +suggest that the great outline of the theological struggles of that +phase of civilisation and world unity which produced Christianity, was a +persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two different ideas +of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God of Nature +accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the former into +a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and +flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer +metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the +trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to +regard the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical +metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of +intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + +And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and +inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, +of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a +Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as something bridging the +great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the +human understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian +Trinity that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had +saturated the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in +unity, are probably the realities that account for the Third Person of +the Christian Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the +discussions that shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated +by such natural and fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, +of course, complicated from the outset; and particularly were they +complicated by the identification of the man Jesus with the theological +Christ, by materialistic expectations of his second coming, by +materialistic inventions about his “miraculous” begetting, and by the +morbid speculations about virginity and the like that arose out of +such grossness. They were still further complicated by the idea of the +textual inspiration of the scriptures, which presently swamped thought +in textual interpretation. That swamping came very early in the +development of Christianity. The writer of St. John’s gospel appears +still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, but Origen is already +hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of St. John’s gospel +was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He was emasculated +mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He quotes; his +predecessor thinks. + +But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of +early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition +of a position. The writer’s position here in this book is, firstly, +complete Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, +entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is +the key of his book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term +God. He uses the word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, +and he uses the term the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the +universe, and he declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in +any comprehensible terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living +reality in our lives who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking +from the point of view of practical religion, he is restricting and +defining the word God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he +is restricting it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence +from our religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the +religious life. + +Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an +Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book +acceptable to them if they will read “the Christ God” where the writer +has written “God.” They will then differ from him upon little more than +the question whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality +between the Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their +Creator God. This the orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many +pre-Nicaeans and many heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its +exact contrary. The Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with +the Manichaeans, that the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The +Christ God was his antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. +And passing beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be +found to many problems in comparative theology in this distinction +between the Being of Nature (cf. Kant’s “starry vault above”) and the +God of the heart (Kant’s “moral law within”). The idea of an antagonism +seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the +Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to +be “antagonistic.” On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and modern +Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God the creator +is altogether and without distinction also God the King of Mankind. +Christianity stands somewhere between such complete identification and +complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude between Father +and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of the Old +Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great +religions of the world between identification, complete separation, +equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that +these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in +the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these +matters. He believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to +salvation. He believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions +upon these points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials +of religion. The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and +exclusively with the God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, +and as the opinion which seems most expressive of modern thought, that +there is no reason to suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or +malignant towards men. But if the reader believes that God is Almighty +and in every way Infinite the practical outcome is not very different. +For the purposes of human relationship it is impossible to deny that +God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, as struggling and taking a part against +evil. + +The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely +extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this +book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in +such speculations and disputes. + + +Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that +is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., +1), nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It +is discussed in “First and Last Things,” Book IV, 4.] He omits this +question because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon +the essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the +relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is +a question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether +we are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of +or a rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of +salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of +consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and +in the world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect +righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal +death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite +for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is +identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value +than the snows of yester-year. + +H. G. W. + +Dunmow, May, 1917. + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + + +1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + + +Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an +exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago +and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, +and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the +new belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, +to trace how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman +world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always had +hitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The +renascent religion that is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; +it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; it has +always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to +see. It is perhaps plainer than it was and to more people--that is all. + +It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those +who hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. +Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley’s, speak of it as Christianity +without Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, +as a matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed +to any belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and +the imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a +parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far +more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of +that the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. + +This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the +opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme +neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect +of Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar +and emotions of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic +Trinitarians stuffed their fingers in their ears in affected horror at +the arguments of old Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity +was established as the essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those +three centuries, the centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest +martyrdoms, Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has +to be noted that a large majority of those who possess and repeat +the Christian creeds have come into the practice so insensibly from +unthinking childhood, that only in the slightest way do they realise the +nature of the statements to which they subscribe. They will speak +and think of both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the +doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire +fabric of all the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly +Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the +world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But +whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be, +there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to give +Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. +Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, +whatever the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its +decay. The renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and +sufficient in many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. +But it is so coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt +to state the shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs +and imperatives and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, +philosophical, and agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. + +The writer’s sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he +speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist +nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, +therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as +fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon +with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has +found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing +independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been +people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, +French, people brought up in a “Catholic atmosphere,” Positivists, +Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable +as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon +parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also +traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be +heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at +hand. + + + +2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + + +Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any +recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it +worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with +the plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are +still carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity +dissolve away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor +all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven +nor earth, and that he has little to identify him with that hereditary +God of the Jews who became the “Father” in the Christian system. On the +other hand he will assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is +a spirit, a person, a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, +inspiring, and lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human +soul. He will be much less certain in his denials that his God has a +close resemblance to the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) +“Christ.” . . . + +The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of +universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any +God and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense +of God within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the +religious experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the +True God is a generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of +that bickering monopolist who “will have none other gods but Me”; and +when a human heart cries out--to what name it matters not--for a larger +spirit and a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, +straightway the nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to +the call. The True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted +the many-handed symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. +Where there is faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready +to clasp the hands that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness +behind the ivory and gold. + +The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly +among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything +else, a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, +to be limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing +with us and through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and +future; he is within time and not outside it. And they point out that +this is really what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help +from God, feels and believes. Our practice with God is better than our +theory. None of us really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a +trois, the Trinity, which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies +of Alexandria and Syria declared to be God. We pray to one single +understanding person. But so far the tactics of those Trinitarians at +Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in their ears, have prevailed in this +world; this was no matter for discussion, they declared, it was a Holy +Mystery full of magical terror, and few religious people have thought +it worth while to revive these terrors by a definite contradiction. The +truly religious have been content to lapse quietly into the comparative +sanity of an unformulated Arianism, they have left it to the scoffing +Atheist to mock at the patent absurdities of the official creed. But one +magnificent protest against this theological fantasy must have been +the work of a sincerely religious man, the cold superb humour of that +burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no doubt facetiously and then quite +seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, which, by an irony far beyond +its original intention, has become at last the accepted creed of the +church. + +The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to +its end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least +patient with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are +very definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth +of the Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of +assuming that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea +is meant. But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and +bad associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange +preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even +make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different +and antagonistic figure. + +It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led +the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for +their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral +quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who +saddled Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme +poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. +Many of these makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who +had even to be baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been +pitchforked into the church from civil life; they lived in a time +of pitiless factions and personal feuds; they had to conduct their +disputations amidst the struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs +and favourites swayed their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their +decisions. There was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian +world than there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience +of educated opinion by which a theory could be judged did not equal, +either in numbers or accuracy of information, the present population of +Constantinople. To these conditions we owe the claim that the Christian +God is a magic god, very great medicine in battle, “in hoc signo +vinces,” and the argument so natural to the minds of those days and so +absurd to ours, that since he had ALL power, all knowledge, and existed +for ever and ever, it was no use whatever to set up any other god +against him. . . . + +By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, +without which everyone was to be “damned everlastingly,” a conception +of God and of Christ’s relation to God, of which even by the Christian +account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so +negligent and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as +scarcely to make mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the +relationship of the Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one +ambiguous and disputed utterance in St. John’s gospel (XV. 26). Most of +the teachings of Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive +student into assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. +Someone floats an opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, +in regard, for example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of +his birth. The new opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds +unaccustomed to so definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil +they fly to a contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit +that they worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor +deny the divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be +polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from +the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the +theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions, +and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a +reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian +doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology +by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and +still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle +was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political +opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing +appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit +unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the +midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all +Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all +those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the +beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not +care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased +to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was +secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by +threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common +faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the +Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic +destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none +of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a +real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left +to work themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist +of Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the +sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to +the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice +formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory +of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the +cement of Christian unity. + +It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are +becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian’s +deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion +declares himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with +self-complacency. There is no reason why they should do so. That many of +us have gone from them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is +not that we who went out into the wilderness which we thought to be +a desert, away from their creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are +returning. It is that we have gone on still further, and are beyond that +desolation. Never more shall we return to those who gather under the +cross. By faith we disbelieved and denied. By faith we said of that +stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that incoherent accumulation of antique +theological notions, the Nicene deity, “This is certainly no God.” And +by faith we have found God. . . . + + + +3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + + +There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he +should supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist +thing to say: “OUR God made the whole universe. Don’t you think that +it would be wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do +anything of the sort?” + +The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this +style of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into +the Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, +demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, +the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for +its divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like +Buddhism in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin +of the universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space +and time. It sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with +superlatives which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the +Hegelians with the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or +the Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known +things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is +a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or +ill. Of that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we +know nothing; to us it is no more than the limit of understanding, +the unknown beyond. It may be of practically limitless intricacy and +possibility. The new religion does not pretend that the God of its life +is that Being, or that he has any relation of control or association +with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows all or much more +than we do about that ultimate Being. + +For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human +analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being +reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms +of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the +ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an +understanding of relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into +those black wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind +will take us. + +That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with +the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled +Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon +which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a +great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. +It may be that they may never be able to deal with it. + + + +4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + + +So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to +the modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and +hate. It is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out +of this veiled being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether +inconceivable, is another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through +matter and clothing itself in continually changing material forms, +the maker of our world, Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that +inscrutable being as a wave comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. +It is as it were a great wave rushing through matter and possessed by +a spirit. It is a breeding, fighting thing; it pants through the jungle +track as the tiger and lifts itself towards heaven as the tree; it is +the rabbit bolting for its life and the dove calling to her mate; it +crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts and devours, it pursues and eats +itself in order to live still more eagerly and hastily; it is every +living thing, of it are our passions and desires and fears. And it +is aware of itself not as a whole, but dispersedly as individual +self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly from every one of the +sentient creatures it has called into being. They look out for their +little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, full of the passions +of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, submitting only to +brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are beings of strain +and conflict and competition. They are living substance still mingled +painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being clothes itself +bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and bright with +threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, hold their +own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . . + +This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the +Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We +may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant +by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic +books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether +this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the +Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary +thought there is no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either +good or evil; it is conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all +the pain and conflict of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, +the delight and hope of youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a +hundred thousand sorts of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful +limbs of man and woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And +in it, as part of it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, +struggling against the final abandonment to death, do we all live, +as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, revengeful, hopeful, weary, +disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, bored, in pain, mood +after mood but always fearing death, with no certainty and no coherence +within us, until we find God. And God comes to us neither out of the +stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still small voice within. + + + +5. GOD IS WITHIN + + +God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men +and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he +has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of +mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is +by our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, +boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our +friend and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the +belief of the modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel +idea about this God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This +is the God that men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as +the Messiah or the Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the +purposelessness of life. The new religion has but disentangled the idea +of him from the absolutes and infinities and mysteries of the Christian +theologians; from mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and +intellectual pretentiousness of a vanished age. + +Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, +no mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement +of what we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of +life, we all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if +we seek salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All +this is in the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states +it were to be instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people +would find their way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. +To this all true religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, +must ultimately come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. +Christian thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian +theology and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection +about its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the +early fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of +reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them with +OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin birth, +with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic minds. How rich +is the literature of authoritative Christianity with decisions upon the +continuing virginity of Mary and the virginity of Joseph--ideas that +first arose in Arabia as a Moslem gloss upon Christianity--and how +little have these peepings and pryings to do with the needs of the heart +and the finding of God! + +Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes +as that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled “The Faith and +the War,” a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and +canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring +and religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting +under this load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great +articles, outside the needle’s eye that leads to God. + + + +6. THE COMING OF GOD + + +Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God +entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue +about God; it relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe +and reverence that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as +one tells of a friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a +beautiful thing found and picked up by the wayside. + +So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal +salvation tallies very closely with the account of “conversion” as it +is given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already +familiar to the reader of William James’s “Varieties of Religious +Experience.” It describes an initial state of distress with the +aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of +the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to +form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known +to many sorts of Christian as “conviction of sin”; it is, at any rate, a +conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of +God comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without +substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is +expounded by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all +those of the new faith with whose personal experience I have any +intimacy, the idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea +floating about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, +but it is realised that if there were such a being he would supply the +needed consolation and direction, his continuing purpose would knit +together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take +the sting from death. Under this realisation the idea is pursued and +elaborated. For a time there is a curious resistance to the suggestion +that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by such phrases +as the Purpose in Things, as the Racial Consciousness, as the Collective +Mind. + +I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea +of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against +divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching +and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ +as the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the +idea that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is +a novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may +think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the +Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not +seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the +idea that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so +much about that God and so little of any other. With that release their +minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. + +Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This +cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the +attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. +It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, +sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is +completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with +and touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It +is as if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us +into fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . + +“Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.” + +The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, +or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. +It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There +is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come +our lives are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of +God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has +found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. +One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the +confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an +essential and enduring happiness and courage. + +There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but +under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this +manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however +mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is +himself finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength +to strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens +to meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The +faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would +see God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil +of the temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of +this huge friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little +beings. To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all +our days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with +him. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + + +1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + + +Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake +that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living +water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is +synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; +the sediment subsides. + +A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without +mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance +of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or +nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord +evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need +consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the +rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being through which the +light of consciousness shines--the light of consciousness and will of +which God is the sun. + +So that every need of human life, every disappointment and +dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may +and do come to the realisation of God. + +There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life +from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men’s +religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel +doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their +mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from +without, the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards +immortality. It is possible to classify the appeals men make for God +under the headings of their chief system of effort, their efforts to +understand, their fear and their struggles for safety and happiness, the +craving of their restlessness for peace, their angers against +disorder and their desire for the avenger; their sexual passions and +perplexities. . . . + +Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort +of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind +of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the +synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of +God grows clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, +leads to the endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent +infirmities of the human mind. But in these days one does not argue +greatly about dogma. Almost every conceivable error about unity, about +personality, about time and quantity and genus and species, about +begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity and every kink +in the difficult mind of man, has been thrust forward in some form of +dogma. Beside the errors of thought are the errors of emotion. Fear and +feebleness go straight to the Heresies that God is Magic or that God +is Providence; restless egotism at leisure and unchallenged by urgent +elementary realities breeds the Heresies of Mysticism, anger and hate +call for God’s Judgments, and the stormy emotions of sex gave mankind +the Phallic God. Those who find themselves possessed by the new spirit +in religion, realise very speedily the necessity of clearing the mind +of all these exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The +search for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value +until most has been swept away. + + + +2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + + +One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the +most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from +wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are +the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the +clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless +variety and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple +confusions. The former are the errors of the study, the latter the +superstitions that spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in +our social structure out of a barbaric past. + +To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate +doctrine of the Trinity, dogmas about God’s absolute qualities, such odd +deductions as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of +Mary and Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox +Christianity. Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian +account, expound or recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was +left for the Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, +busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was +driving at, three centuries after their Master was dead. . . . + +Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their +inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary +perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error +that creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the +limitations upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle +and disputation across the path by which men come to God. It would not +matter very much if it were not that simpler souls are caught in these +webs. Every great religious system in the world is choked by such webs; +each system has its own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which +make up doctrinal Christianity and imprison the mind of the western +world to-day, not one seems to have been known to the nominal founder +of Christianity. Jesus Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; +never spoke clearly of the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of +salvation and the significance of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose +that he left his apostles without instructions, that were necessary to +their eternal happiness, that he could give them the Lord’s Prayer but +leave them to guess at the all-important Creed,* and that the Church +staggered along blindly, putting its foot in and out of damnation, +until the “experts” of Nicaea, that “garland of priests,” marshalled by +Constantine’s officials, came to its rescue. . . . From the conversion +of Paul onward, the heresies of the intellect multiplied about Christ’s +memory and hid him from the sight of men. We are no longer clear about +the doctrine he taught nor about the things he said and did. . . . + + * Even the “Apostles’ Creed” is not traceable earlier than + the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched + formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down + for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and + used as a sort of password among the elect. + +We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at +heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to +spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in +which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. +There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, +but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand +different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks +of the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of +the Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of +those theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, +who sit on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the +temples of India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of +the human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural +heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, +and which are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to +keep constant watch. They return very insidiously. + + + +3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + + +One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to +consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + +It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our +souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to +hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of +acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led +to believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their +own souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing +more for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want +him, but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls +think to make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain +things that are supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such +as saying prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in +a blind, industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early +Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, +or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these +fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the normal +course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial log-roller. +He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty ailments, contrives +unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the like, he averts +bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and does a thousand +such services for his little clique of faithful people. The pious are +represented as being constantly delighted by these little surprises, +these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or contrawise +he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their religious +attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or disorganises the +careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is represented as going +Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a Staffordshire worker +goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is saturated with this +fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT +JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish magazine. It is +an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the qualities of +the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their +recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, +but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true +God. + +There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called +THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of +various clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen +who belong to the little school of thought which this magazine +represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the +Established Church of England, that is to say within the Anglican +communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It contains among other papers +a very entertaining summary by a gentleman entitled--I cite the unusual +title-page of the periodical--“Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.,” of the views +of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are +distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only +upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon the relations of the +weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God +has been persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points +out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the +British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet state of +the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in the winter +of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in delaying the +relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the difficult question +why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, did not, instead +of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, adopt the +more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the German +stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting +their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction +or gravitation. + +Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only +conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in +the established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity +here with nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find +indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in +endless official Christian utterances on the part of German and British +and Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently +ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long +sermons--among other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly +convinced that God can be invoked by ritual--for example by special +days of national prayer or an increased observance of Sunday--or made +malignant by neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their +idea of him. The ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic +pettiness of God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and +resentments of “Heaven” is at least equally strong. + +But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God +of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men’s ends or the ends of +nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies +and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and +weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not +coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs us. . . . + + + +4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + + +Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that +calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and +effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling +about the order of events for our personal advantages. + +The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in “Tartarin +in the Alps.” You will remember how Tartarin’s friend assured him that +all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and +far too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, +that all the precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks +guarded against falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and +the crevasses at their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment +bags. If the mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned +back by specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved +with incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of +the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid +soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And provided there +is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would +work altogether well if there were no crevasses. + +Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. +But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? + +There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis +Younghusband called “Within.” [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the +confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence +until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and +campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he +saw much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The +loss of a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. +Then coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down +by an automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and +mind. His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost +to see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and +the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine +essential simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do +so. His confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether +destroyed. His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously +he reconstructed his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book +typical of an age and of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth +reading. + +That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how +near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + + +“The existence of an outside Providence,” he writes, “who created us, +who watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, +we have found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a +Holy Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its +fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we +can be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual +impulsion at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, +is the supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always +attain to light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too +hard and it is utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. +But in a few it bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who +in some heavenly moment of their lives have not been conscious of its +presence. We may not be able to give it outward expression, but we know +that it is there.” . . . + + +God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining +and correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, +there is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an +ill-tended engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel +guides your steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your +innocent children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. +Cherish no delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and +chance on your own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those +you care for. Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. +But God will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the +dark ice-cave God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He +will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether it +is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up in his +victory. + + +5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + + +God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from +ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and +adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he +makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the +sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside +one, shoulder to shoulder. + +The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from +life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of +the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many +mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command +services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of +indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence +and give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with +the divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how +ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed +the true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a +spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. +The true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, +calling for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must +accept his discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not +by thinking about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + + + +6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + + +Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral +indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were +more often “wrath” than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic +deity who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the +influence of the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and +who became also the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men +against everything that is unlike themselves, against strange people +and cheerful people, against unfamiliar usages and things they do +not understand, embodied itself in this conception of a malignant and +partisan Deity, perpetually “upset” by the little things people did, +and contriving murder and vengeance. Now this God would be drowning +everybody in the world, now he would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, +now he would be inciting his congenial Israelites to the most terrific +pogroms. This divine “frightfulness” is of course the natural +human dislike and distrust for queer practices or for too sunny a +carelessness, a dislike reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape +in us, liberating the latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it +an excuse and pressing permission upon it, handing the thing hated and +feared over to its secular arm. . . . + + * It is not so generally understood as it should be among + English and American readers that a very large proportion of + early Christians before the creeds established and + regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely + that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel + against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as + Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived + for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held + by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the + Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The + catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the + circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely + on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew + God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, + when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only + the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. + +It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct +for restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet +familiar things, that these things of the True God should so readily +liberate cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to +tend and protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None +the less, right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God +the Persecutor and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent +years that the growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men +a little ashamed of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. +The recent literature of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this +trouble. + +Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying +the irascibility of his God and teaching “the Kaffirs of Natal” the +dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. “We cannot allow it to be said,” + the Dean of Cape Town insisted, “that God was not angry and was not +appeased by punishment.” He was angry “on account of Sin, which is a +great evil and a great insult to His Majesty.” The case of the Rev. +Charles Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the +Church’s insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to +be found in the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in +the latest edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it +appears to have been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the +church would prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey +to-day. + + + +7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + + +Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of +miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed +parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and +he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word “God” first came +into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, +as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great +convenience to the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her +charges and enforce her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own +aims. But indeed, the teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul +of a child scarcely less dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason +rebels and is crushed under this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many +minds never rise again from their injury. They remain for the rest of +life spiritually crippled and debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a +persuasion of relentless cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + +I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell +were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed +in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic +monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting +to condemn and to “strike me dead”; his flames as ready as a grill-room +fire. He was over me and about my feebleness and silliness and +forgetfulness as the sky and sea would be about a child drowning in +mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of +the true God in me, I flung this Lie out of my mind, and for many years, +until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the +name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous scar in my heart where a +fearful demon had been. + +I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this +bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still +living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God +should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to +formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; +they dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, +of nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old +watching spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in +their hearts, echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, +fear-driven. For the true God has no lash of fear. And how the +foul-minded bigot, with his ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, +gesticulating hands, his bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this +harvest of fear the ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown +for him! How he loves the importance of denunciation, and, himself +a malignant cripple, to rally the company of these crippled souls to +persecute and destroy the happy children of God! . . . + +Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real +wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and +that affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions +of instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak +for me. This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a +debate in the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the +publications of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: + + +“I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction +of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement +that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the +proper time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in +the book. Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and +to these children I find these statements addressed in the book: + +“‘It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must +acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.’ + +“I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there +were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not +mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that +it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to +its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the +words, to say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious +question: + +“‘Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to +his priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their +sins. It was to priests alone that Jesus said: “Receive ye the Holy +Ghost.” . . . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a +terrible sickness, and casts souls into hell.’ + +“That is addressed to a child six years of age. + +“‘I have known,’ the book continues, ‘poor children who concealed their +sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented +with remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly +have gone to the everlasting fires of hell.’” . . . + + +Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time +after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their +preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are +among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, +lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not +of many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known +sacerdotalism this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly +power release an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of +suffering and a hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any +other sort of men. + + + +8. THE CHILDREN’S GOD + + +Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for +an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still +children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to +feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . + +The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no +appetite for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for +the attention of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who +dream of glory in the nursery, who love to hear it said, “The children +adore him.” If children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and +mutual forbearance, they will be ready for the true God as their needs +bring them within his scope. They should be left to their innocence, and +to their trust in the innocence of the world, as long as they can be. +They should be told only of God as a Great Friend whom some day they +will need more and understand and know better. That is as much as most +children need. The phrases of religion put too early into their mouths +may become a cant, something worse than blasphemy. + +Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in +their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not +follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological +formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike +or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a +distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may +begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain +bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, +through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our +children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his +limitless charity. . . . + +With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and +that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + + + +9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + + +In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very +considerable disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of +sexual thought and feeling. But in the early days of religion the two +things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, +for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary “wrath” of +their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of +the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative +of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the +Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far +Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the +representative Christian churches still make marriage into a mystical +sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the Roman communion exacts +the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, regardless of the +mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. Nearly every +Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can +contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat illegitimate +children as unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and +an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent this +statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, but let +them consult their orthodox authorities. + +One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or +sinful in itself and what is held to be one’s duty or a nation’s duty +because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to +do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our +institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. +But my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but +that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the +professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not +the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These +sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most +violent efforts are made--with a sense of complete righteousness--to +prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be +explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God in +the minds of great numbers of his exponents. His disentanglement from +that plexus is incomplete. Sexual things are still to the orthodox +Christian, sacred things. + +Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately +concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual +essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of +Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the +most petty and intimate of observances--many of which are now habitually +disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the +evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled +our conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual +rules that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ +himself was one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is +the clearest evidence in several instances of his disregard of the +rule and his insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit +underlying and often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser +matter, has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further +than it was obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his +principle that in all these matters there is no need for superstitious +fear, that the interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the +unembarrassed intelligence of men. The church has followed him far +enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics +against what they are pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, +a profound inconsistency. One seems to hear their distant protests when +one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans +and sinners. The clergy of our own days play the part of the +New Testament Pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete +unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing +with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, unless she was in a very +high social position indeed, or blending with disreputable characters +without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by-play. +Those who profess modern religion do but follow in these matters a +course entirely compatible with what has survived of the authentic +teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, and that +religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual +things are a barbaric inheritance. + +But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that +those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, +let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding +paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. +We would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and +observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more +wholly his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself +unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes +all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body +as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God’s service as +he can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such +a consecrated life. It is a matter between the individual and his +conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may +do or not do, what he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. +Nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to determine and perform +the right act. Nothing can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here +being insisted upon is that none of these things has immediately to do +with God or religious emotion, except only the general will to do right +in God’s service. The detailed interpretation of that “right” is for the +dispassionate consideration of the human intelligence. + +All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of +the emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most +obstinately recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always +tending to leak back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented +priesthood of the Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the +extreme practices of the Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike +predecessors of Christianity, there seems to be an extraordinary belief +that chastity was not invented until Christianity came, and that the +religious life is largely the propitiation of God by feats of sexual +abstinence. But a superstitious abstinence that scars and embitters +the mind, distorts the imagination, makes the body gross and keeps it +unclean, is just as offensive to God as any positive depravity. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE LIKENESS OF GOD + + +1. GOD IS COURAGE + +Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as +the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside +from our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God +is. Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there +is always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I +have not called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + +And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + + + +2. GOD IS A PERSON + + +And next GOD IS A PERSON. + +Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are +very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of +their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, +who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; +who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless +and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against +much that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be +loyal; he is our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our +lives. He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He +hopes and attempts. . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no +Infinite. He is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + +Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking +about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show +us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, +presently they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself +suddenly in the net of those ancient controversies between species +and individual, between the one and the many, which arise out of the +necessarily imperfect methods of the human mind. Upon these matters +there has been much pregnant writing during the last half century. Such +ideas as this writer has to offer are to be found in a previous little +book of his, “First and Last Things,” in which, writing as one without +authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man +vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to +elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by +which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to +say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision +of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent imperfections. If +we do not use our phraseology with a certain courage, and take that +of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us with a certain +politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any discussion in +so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, denials, and +wranglings. And about this word “person” it is necessary to be as clear +and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of +mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible. + +Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a +man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; +we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has +forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided +against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the +contrary we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him +continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only +abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the +idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word “person” there is +more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the +person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as +opposed to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the +gods of primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that +quality of person. They were thought of as living in very splendid +bodies and as acting consistently. If they were invisible in the +ordinary world it was because they were aloof or because their “persons” + were too splendid for weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated +view of the person of the Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who +insisted upon seeing Zeus in the glories that were sacred to Juno, +was utterly consumed. The early Islamic conception of God, like the +conception of most honest, simple Christians to-day, was clearly, in +spite of the theologians, of a very exalted anthropomorphic personality +away somewhere in Heaven. The personal appearance of the Christian God +is described in The Revelation, and however much that description may be +explained away by commentators as symbolical, it is certainly taken by +most straightforward believers as a statement of concrete reality. +Now if we are going to insist upon this primary meaning of person and +individual, then certainly God as he is now conceived is not a person +and not an individual. The true God will never promenade an Eden or a +Heaven, nor sit upon a throne. + +But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian +theological thought--that, for instance, which has found such delicate +and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of Rabindranath +Tagore--has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic insistence upon +a body. From the earliest ages man’s mind has found little or no +difficulty in the idea of something essential to the personality, a soul +or a spirit or both, existing apart from the body and continuing after +the destruction of the body, and being still a person and an individual. +From this it is a small step to the thought of a person existing +independently of any existing or pre-existing body. That is the idea +of theological Christianity, as distinguished from the Christianity +of simple faith. The Triune Persons--omnipresent, omniscient, and +omnipotent--exist for all time, superior to and independent of matter. +They are supremely disembodied. One became incarnate--as a wind eddy +might take up a whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern +religion conceive that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea +of spirituality, a disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the +limits of the conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that +a person, a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal +body. . . . They declare that God is without any specific body, that he +is immaterial, that he can affect the material universe--and that means +that he can only reach our sight, our hearing, our touch--through the +bodies of those who believe in him and serve him. + +His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, in his +essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with space. He is +not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. Since the period when +all the great theologies that prevail to-day were developed, there have +been great changes in the ideas of men towards the dimensions of time +and space. We owe to Kant the release from the rule of these ideas as +essential ideas. Our modern psychology is alive to the possibility of +Being that has no extension in space at all, even as our speculative +geometry can entertain the possibility of dimensions--fourth, fifth, Nth +dimensions--outside the three-dimensional universe of our experience. +And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an infinite +remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere immediately at +hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere immediately at +hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of men. He is in +immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + +But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter or +space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; that +he changes and becomes more even as a man’s purpose gathers itself +together; that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a beginning, +an awakening, and that as mankind grows he grows. With our eyes he looks +out upon the universe he invades; with our hands, he lays hands upon +it. All our truth, all our intentions and achievements, he gathers to +himself. He is the undying human memory, the increasing human will. + +But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that this +is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who believe in the +new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not an aggregate +but a synthesis. He is not merely the best of all of us, but a Being in +himself, composed of that but more than that, as a temple is more than a +gathering of stones, or a regiment is more than an accumulation of men. +They point out that a man is made up of a great multitude of cells, each +equivalent to a unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor +is he simply just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of +them. You can take away these and these and these, and he still remains. +And he can detach part of himself and treat it as if it were not +himself, just as a man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer the martyr +did, thrust his hand into the flames. A man is none the less himself +because his hair is cut or his appendix removed or his leg amputated. + +And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that +spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the +tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But +men love England, which is made up of such things. + +And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither +body nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to +him, though we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he +sometimes uses. And we may think of him as having moods and aspects--as +a man has--and a consistency we call his character. + +These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey this +modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person whose will +and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands the religious +life seeks conversion by argument. First one must feel the need of God, +then one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God. That much is no +more than turning one’s face to the east to see the coming of the sun. +One may still doubt if that direction is the east or whether the sun +will rise. The real coming of God is not that. It is a change, an +irradiation of the mind. Everything is there as it was before, only now +it is aflame. Suddenly the light fills one’s eyes, and one knows that +God has risen and that doubt has fled for ever. + + +3. GOD IS YOUTH + + +The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + +God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into the +future. + +Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is in +those systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian attempt to +represent or symbolise God the Father which is not a bearded, aged man. +White hair, beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred such symptoms of senile +decay are there. These marks of senility do not astonish our modern +minds in the picture of God, only because tradition and usage have +blinded our eyes to the absurdity of a time-worn immortal. Jove too and +Wotan are figures far past the prime of their vigour. These are gods +after the ancient habit of the human mind, that turned perpetually +backward for causes and reasons and saw all things to come as no more +than the working out of Fate,-- + + “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe.” + +But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but our +future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure of +a beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his +strength. He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, eager +to go forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that was +still but a promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, discriminating +weapon, his eyes should be as bright as swords; his lips should fall +apart with eagerness for the great adventure before him, and he should +be in very fresh and golden harness, reflecting the rising sun. Death +should still hang like mists and cloud banks and shadows in the valleys +of the wide landscape about him. There should be dew upon the threads of +gossamer and little leaves and blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + + + +4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + + +One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most trite +and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that deserves +careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; there are people +who will say they love new potatoes; there are a multitude of loves +of different colours and values. There is the love of a mother for her +child, there is the love of brothers, there is the love of youth and +maiden, and the love of husband and wife, there is illicit love and the +love one bears one’s home or one’s country, there are dog-lovers and the +loves of the Olympians, and love which is a passion of jealousy. Love +is frequently a mere blend of appetite and preference; it may be +almost pure greed; it may have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit +self-forgetful nor generous. It is possible so to phrase things that the +furtive craving of a man for another man’s wife may be made out to be +a light from God. Yet about all the better sorts of love, the sorts of +love that people will call “true love,” there is something of that same +exaltation out of the narrow self that is the essential quality of the +knowledge of God. + +Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the +exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the windows +by which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is the open door +by which we freely go. And God never dies, nor disappoints, nor betrays. + +The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its +earlier phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much +possessiveness and exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced trust, +and far too great a kindred with jealousy to be like the love of God. +The former is a dramatic relationship that drifts to a climax, and then +again seeks presently a climax, and that may be satiated or fatigued. +But the latter is far more like the love of comrades, or like the +love of a man and a woman who have loved and been through much trouble +together, who have hurt one another and forgiven, and come to a complete +and generous fellowship. There is a strange and beautiful love that men +tell of that will spring up on battlefields between sorely wounded men, +and often they are men who have fought together, so that they will do +almost incredibly brave and tender things for one another, though but +recently they have been trying to kill each other. There is often a pure +exaltation of feeling between those who stand side by side manfully in +any great stress. These are the forms of love that perhaps come nearest +to what we mean when we speak of the love of God. + +That is man’s love of God, but there is also something else; there is +the love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this is not +an indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love of a woman +for her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; God must love +his followers as a great captain loves his men, who are so foolish, so +helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet whose faith alone makes +him possible. It is an austere love. The spirit of God will not hesitate +to send us to torment and bodily death. . . . + +And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach +him. He has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to make +himself known to us. When at last the individual breaks through the +limiting darknesses to him, the irradiation of that moment, the smile +and soul clasp, is in God as well as in man. He has won us from his +enemy. We come staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, +to fight for his kingdom henceforth, until at last we are altogether +taken up into his being. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + + + +1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + + +It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to drape +about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, the +honest Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth bare, is +constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. It will be +interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme instability of +absolute negation. + +Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who was +a very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the other day. +He was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man almost of the rank +and quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A decade or more ago he wrote +a book called “The Nature of Man,” in which he set out very plainly a +number of illuminating facts about life. They are facts so illuminating +that presently, in our discussion of sin, they will be referred to +again. But it is not Professor Metchnikoff’s intention to provide +material for a religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to +overthrow theology as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his +book, the thing upon which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no +inkling of the fact that he has no longer the right to conceive theology +as he conceives it. The development of his science has destroyed that +right. + +He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our ideas +of individuality and species, and how the import of theology is modified +through these changes. When he comes from his own world of modern +biology to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. He attacks +religion as he understood it when first he fell out with it fifty years +or more ago. + +Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes that +biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the general +scheme and method of our thinking. + +The influence of biology upon thought in general consists essentially +in diminishing the importance of the individual and developing the +realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of super-individual, a +modifying and immortal super-individual, maintaining itself against the +outer universe by the birth and death of its constituent individuals. +Natural History, which began by putting individuals into species as if +the latter were mere classificatory divisions, has come to see that +the species has its adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding +in interest and importance the individual adventure. “The Origin of +Species” was for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + +The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be +stated plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we current +individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us distributed between +two parents, then between four grandparents, and so on backward, we are +temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an ancestral diffusion; we +stand our trial, and presently our individuality is dispersed and +mixed again with other individualities in an uncertain multitude of +descendants. But the species is not like this; it goes on steadily from +newness to newness, remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual +life is a mere episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing +adventure of the species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of +life and the distresses of life in the fact that the species is still +very painfully adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under +which it lives. The conflict of life is a continual pursuit of +adjustment, and the “ills of life,” of the individual life that is, +are due to its “disharmonies.” Man, acutely aware of himself as an +individual adventure and unawakened to himself as a species, finds life +jangling and distressful, finds death frustration. He fails and falls as +a person in what may be the success and triumph of his kind. He does +not apprehend the struggle or the nature of victory, but only his own +gravitation to death and personal extinction. + +Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti-religious +because to him as to so many Europeans religion is confused with +priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with disagreeable early +impressions of irrational repression and misguidance. How completely he +misconceives the quality of religion, how completely he sees it as an +individual’s affair, his own words may witness: + + +“Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions +which as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future +life has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life +after death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On +the other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy +humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought +of the inevitability of death.” + + +Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, and by +a future life the prolongation of individuality. But Buddhism does +not in truth appear ever to have been concerned with that, and modern +religious developments are certainly not under that preoccupation with +the narrower self. Buddhism indeed so far from “preaching resignation” + to death, seeks as its greater good a death so complete as to be +absolute release from the individual’s burthen of KARMA. Buddhism seeks +an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY. The deeper one pursues religious +thought the more nearly it approximates to a search for escape from the +self-centred life and over-individuation, and the more it diverges from +Professor Metchnikoff’s assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to +lose one’s self. But Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied +that this is so, is then left free to take the very essentials of the +religious life as they are here conceived and present them as if +they were the antithesis of the religious life. His book, when it is +analysed, resolves itself into just that research for an escape from the +painful accidents and chagrins of individuation, which is the ultimate +of religion. + +At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true solution +round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his most hopeful +satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such a scientific +prolongation of life that the instinct for self-preservation will be at +last extinct. If that is not the very “resignation” he imputes to the +Buddhist I do not know what it is. He believes that an individual which +has lived fully and completely may at last welcome death with the same +instinctive readiness as, in the days of its strength, it shows for the +embraces of its mate. We are to be glutted by living to six score and +ten. We are to rise from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We +shall go to death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men +are to have a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their +prime, and their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a +period of ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and twenty or +thereabouts) and public service! + +(But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the +simple pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? Metchnikoff +never faces that question. And again, what of the man who is challenged +to die for right at the age of thirty? What does the prolongation +of life do for him? And where are the consolations for accidental +misfortune, for the tormenting disease or the lost limb?) + +But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure +religiosity. The prolongation of life gives place to sheer +self-sacrifice as the fundamental “remedy.” And indeed what other remedy +has ever been conceived for the general evil of life? + + +“On the other hand,” he writes, “the knowledge that the goal of human +life can be attained only by the development of a high degree of +solidarity amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that +the enjoyment of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes +ix. 7-10)* is opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and +the evil that comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able +to redress the disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly +to the improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind. + + * Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine + with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let + thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no + ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all + the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee + under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy + portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest + under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it + with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor + knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. + +“In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted +continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has +produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In +the problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of +nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able +to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify +his own constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . . + +“To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame +the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of +science. + +“If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion +of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And +if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith +alone, the faith must be in the power of science.” + + +Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of +“religion” and “philosophy” as remedies for human ills, is nothing less +than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into +terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really +over-individuation and that salvation is escape from self into the +larger being of life. . . . + +What can this “religion of the future” be but that devotion to the +racial adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already found, +like gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed away the +confusions and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an inquiry setting +out from a purely religious starting-point we have already reached +conclusions identical with this ultimate refuge of an extreme +materialist. + +This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our God--an +altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + + + +2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + + +Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness +and generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were the +statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a religious +writer would say--except that God is not named. Religious metaphors +abound. It is as if they accepted the living body of religion but denied +the bones that held it together--as they might deny the bones of a +friend. It is true, they would admit, the body moves in a way that +implies bones in its every movement, but--WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE +BONES. + +The disputes in theory--I do not say the difference in reality--between +the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic--becomes at times almost +as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to students of physics, +whether the scientific “ether” is real or a formula. Every material +phenomenon is consonant with and helps to define this ether, which +permeates and sustains and is all things, which nevertheless is +perceptible to no sense, which is reached only by an intellectual +process. Most minds are disposed to treat this ether as a reality. But +the acutely critical mind insists that what is only so attainable by +inference is not real; it is no more than “a formula that satisfies all +phenomena.” + +But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that +satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + +Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to +believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, +from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and +spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as +yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God’s will is so; the other +that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other +the Good Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, +moves me to do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference +and escapes a risk of self-righteousness. + +I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called “The +Tyranny of Shams,” in which he displays very typically this curious +tendency to a sort of religion with God “blacked out.” His is an +extremely interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman +Catholic priest, and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a +resolution even sterner than Professor Metchnikoff’s, to deny that +anything religious or divine can exist, that there can be any aim +in life except happiness, or any guide but “science.” But--and here +immediately he turns east again--he is careful not to say “individual +happiness.” And he says “Pleasure is, as Epicureans insisted, only +a part of a large ideal of happiness.” So he lets the happiness of +devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens indefinite possibilities of +getting away from any merely materialistic rule of life. And he writes: + + +“In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and +indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness. +Why, they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a thing as a duty to +improve the earth? What is the meaning or purpose of life? Or has it a +purpose? + +“One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of +controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People tell you +that the conflict of science and religion--it would be better to say, +the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions--has robbed life +of its plain significance. The men who, like Tolstoi, seriously urge +this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life. Certainly +modern culture--science, history, philosophy, and art--finds no purpose +in life: that is to say, no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered +by man. A great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine ‘a +series of lucky accidents’--the chance blowing by the wind of certain +chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the first +appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the influences +which have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as +a similar series of lucky accidents. + +“But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there +is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development +of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose +and set up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will +teach us that this choice must be social, not merely individual. In +whatever measure ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal +impulses or attractions, the aim of the race must be a collective aim. I +do not mean an austere demand of self-sacrifice from the individual, +but an adjustment--as genial and generous as possible--of individual +variations for common good. Otherwise life becomes discordant and +futile, and the pain and waste react on each individual. So we raise +again, in the twentieth century, the old question of ‘the greatest +good,’ which men discussed in the Stoa Poikile and the suburban groves +of Athens, in the cool atria of patrician mansions on the Palatine and +the Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and the schools which Omar +Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of the Middle Ages and +the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici.” + + +And again: + + +“The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring +happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above +all the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, +which have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that +height--just as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on +no metaphysic, no sacred legend, no disputable tradition--nothing that +scepticism can corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations +are the fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature.” + + +And again: + + +“The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time +is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of +that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general +social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. +It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the +finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines +it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of +the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, +for these are elemental principles of social life; but it appeals +more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered +children of the race, and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction +of suffering and the creation of happiness. The advance guard of the +race, the men and women in whom mental alertness is associated with fine +feeling, cry that they have reached Pisgah’s slope and in increasing +numbers men and women are pressing on to see if it be really the +Promised Land.” + + +“Pisgah--the Promised Land!” Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if he +were half-way to “Oh! Beulah Land!” and the tambourine. + +That “larger spirit,” we maintain, is God; those “impulses” are the +power of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to +realise fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic +Church, and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured +back to that altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that +preoccupation, and immediately he will begin to realise the presence of +Divinity. + + + +3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + + +It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves +to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that +if their conception of right living falls in so completely with the +conception of God’s service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God, +like the ether of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no +more than an imaginative externalisation of man’s inherent good will. +Why trouble about God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition +a sufficient evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such +benevolent unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those +who have found God? + +The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone upon +his own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting +to his own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral strength. A +certain immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs like a precipice +above him; incalculable temptations open like gulfs beneath his feet. He +has not really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to +whom he can give himself. He is still a masterless man. His exaltation +is self-centred, is priggishness, his fall is unrestrained by any +exterior obligation. His devotion is only the good will in himself, a +disposition; it is a mood that may change. At any moment it may change. +He may have pledged himself to his own pride and honour, but who will +hold him to his bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own +amiable sentiments, his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and +no one watches while he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. He +has no real and living link with other men of good will. + +And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely intellectual +are in no better case than those who deny God altogether. They may have +all the forms of truth and not divinity. The religion of the atheist +with a God-shaped blank at its heart and the persuasion of the +unconverted theologian, are both like lamps unlit. The lit lamp has no +difference in form from the lamp unlit. But the lit lamp is alive and +the lamp unlit is asleep or dead. + +The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the +servant of the true God is this; it is that the latter has experienced +a complete turning away from self. This only difference is all the +difference in the world. It is the realisation that this goodness that +I thought was within me and of myself and upon which I rather prided +myself, is without me and above myself, and infinitely greater and +stronger than I. It is the immortal and I am mortal. It is invincible +and steadfast in its purpose, and I am weak and insecure. It is no +longer that I, out of my inherent and remarkable goodness, out of +the excellence of my quality and the benevolence of my heart, give a +considerable amount of time and attention to the happiness and welfare +of others--because I choose to do so. On the contrary I have come under +a divine imperative, I am obeying an irresistible call, I am a humble +and willing servant of the righteousness of God. That altruism which +Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would have us regard as the goal +and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is really the first simple +commandment in the religious life. + + + +4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + + +Now here is a passage from a book, “Evolution and the War,” by Professor +Metchnikoff’s translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which comes even closer +to our conception of God as an immortal being arising out of man, and +external to the individual man. He has been discussing that well-known +passage of Kant’s: “Two things fill my mind with ever-renewed wonder and +awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them--the starry vault above +me, and the moral law within me.” + +From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this most +definite and interesting statement: + + +“Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel +and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who +dislikes all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the +implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain +as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that +the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It +has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the +work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not +in man, inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his +customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance +are the crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in +a high place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and +fall, but the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations +must be measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the +debasement or perfection of man’s great achievement.” + + +This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that this +book asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we call Him +“Man’s Great Achievement” or “The Son of Man” or the “God of Mankind” or +“God.” So far as the practical and moral ends of life are concerned, it +does not matter how we explain or refuse to explain His presence in our +lives. + +There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is asserted that +GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of self-suppression to +our weakness. + + + +5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + + +Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture +upon Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same +characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of +denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute +Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the +possibility of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite +Being from the idea of God. It is another striking instance of that +obsession of modern minds by merely Christian theology of which I have +already complained. Professor Murray has quoted Mr. Bevan’s phrase for +God, “the Friend behind phenomena,” and he does not seem to realise that +that phrase carries with it no obligation whatever to believe that this +Friend is in control of the phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to +be in control as if it were a matter of course: + + +“We do seem to find,” Professor Murray writes, “not only in all +religions, but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man is +not quite alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours towards +the good by some external help or sympathy. We find it everywhere in the +unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded self-revelations of the +most severe and conscientious Atheists. Now, the Stoics, like many other +schools of thought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. +It was not an absolute proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, +but it was a strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive +belief in the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must +be a good cause for that belief. + +“This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But it +does not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the content of +the belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those +points on which Stoicism, in company with almost all philosophy up to +the present time, has gone astray through not sufficiently realising its +dependence on the human mind as a natural biological product. For it is +very important in this matter to realise that the so-called belief is +not really an intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole +nature. + +“It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise +the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally +unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from +the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see +philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the +Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a +moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it +seems to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old +ineradicable instinct. We are gregarious animals; our ancestors have +been such for countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world as +gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. +Students of animals under domestication have shown us how the habits +of a gregarious creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in +a thousand details by reference to the lost pack which is no longer +there--the pack which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time +he is out walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. +It is a strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the +gregarious animal for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may +be, it may very possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind +phenomena our own yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive +conviction, since they are certainly not founded on either reason or +observation, are in origin the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious +animal to find its herd or its herd-leader in the great spaces between +the stars. + +“At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of.” + + +There the passage and the lecture end. + +I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the reality of +God. + +Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed +solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, +“atheists” so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one’s +own was not the universal disposition of living things. His classical +training disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual +difference. But nearly every animal, and certainly every mentally +considerable animal, begins under parental care, in a nest or a litter, +mates to breed, and is associated for much of its life. Even the great +carnivores do not go alone except when they are old and have done with +the most of life. Every pack, every herd, begins at some point in a +couple, it is the equivalent of the tiger’s litter if that were to +remain undispersed. And it is within the memory of men still living +that in many districts the African lion has with a change of game and +conditions lapsed from a “solitary” to a gregarious, that is to say a +prolonged family habit of life. + +Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher apes, +is an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has passed +within the historical period from a tribal gregariousness to a nearly +cosmopolitan tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. He is not, as +Professor Murray seems to suggest, a solitary LOST gregarious beast. Why +should his desire for God be regarded as the overflow of an unsatisfied +gregarious instinct, when he has home, town, society, companionship, +trade union, state, INCREASINGLY at hand to glut it? Why should +gregariousness drive a man to God rather than to the third-class +carriage and the public-house? Why should gregariousness drive men out +of crowded Egyptian cities into the cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer +in a memorable passage (about the hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is +flatly opposed to Professor Murray, and seems far more plausible when +he declares that the nature of man is insufficiently gregarious. The +parallel with the dog is not a valid one. + +Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the +Friend that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not the +real deception, our belief that we are completely individualised, and +is it not possible that this that Professor Murray calls “instinct” + is really not a vestige but a new thing arising out of our increasing +understanding, an intellectual penetration to that greater being of the +species, that vine, of which we are the branches? Why should not the +soul of the species, many faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like +our own? + +Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other cases +of atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate understanding +of individuation bars the way to at least the intellectual recognition +of the true God. + + + +6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + + +And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent +interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston’s. You will note that while +in this book we use the word “God” to indicate the God of the Heart, +Sir Harry uses “God” for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, which we have +spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word “God” is of late +theological origin; the original identity of the words “good” and “god” + and all the stories of the gods are against him. But Sir Harry takes up +God only to define him away into incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + + +“We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, +assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating +this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of +planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. +We are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is +intended to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out +of incompleteness and misery; and we are entitled to identify the +reactionary forces of brute Nature with the anthropomorphic Devil of +primitive religions, the power of darkness resisting the power of light. +But in these conjectures we must surely come to the conclusion that +the theoretical potency we call ‘God’ makes endless experiments, and +scrap-heaps the failures. Think of the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of +creative energy that went to their differentiation and their well-nigh +incredible physical development. . . . + +“To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and +perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may +seem little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the +cutting, the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as +little remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the +Creative Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA +MEMBRA of perfected life on this planet. . . .” + + +But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God +of man as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of +humanitarianism. Sir Harry’s ideas are much less thoroughly thought out +than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On +that account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ +were simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of +ethics--and yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though +religions were nothing more than ethical movements, and as though +Christianity were merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness +that everything was simply horrid, and so, “Let us instal loving +kindness as a cardinal axiom.” He ignores altogether the fundamental +essential of religion, which is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE +DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE +IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. +He presents a conception of religion relieved of its “nonsense” as the +cheerful self-determination of a number of bright little individuals +(much stirred but by no means overcome by Cosmic Pity) to the Service +of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as outward a thing, it goes as +little into the intimacy of their lives, as though they had after proper +consideration agreed to send a subscription to a Red Cross Ambulance or +take part in a public demonstration against the Armenian Massacres, or +do any other rather nice-spirited exterior thing. This is what he says: + + +“I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the +Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian +ideal and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and +disputable, and ‘mattering not neither here nor there,’ of Christian +theology--a theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of +Christ--and all of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made +immortal in their application by unassailable truth and by the +confirmation of science. An excellent remedy for the nonsense which +still clings about religion may be found in two books: Cotter Monson’s +‘Service of Man,’ which was published as long ago as 1887, and has since +been re-issued by the Rationalist Press Association in its well-known +sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton’s ‘Man and the Bible.’ +Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of the relations +between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade’s ‘Martyrdom of +Man.’” + + +Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a +well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength +in his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the “Service of Man” + is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the +undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE INVISIBLE KING + + +1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + + +The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince growing +in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his service and who +gives salvation from self and mortality only through self-abandonment to +his service, necessarily involves a demand for a complete revision and +fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + +God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and confusions +and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a dark jungle +to a great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a sword. It is plain +that he can admit no divided control of the world he claims. He concedes +nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy there are no human things that +are God’s and others that are Caesar’s. Those of the new thought cannot +render unto God the things that are God’s, and to Caesar the things that +are Caesar’s. Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men’s lives and +direct their destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king +nor Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except +he claim as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his +claim. The steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place for +the sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims “divine right” plays with +the lightning. + +The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or +democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make plain +the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the discovery and +service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts of men, and the +performance of that will, not only in the private life of the believer +but in the acts and order of the state and nation of which he is a part. +I give myself to God not only because I am so and so but because I am +mankind. I become in a measure responsible for every evil in the world +of men. I become a knight in God’s service. I become my brother’s +keeper. I become a responsible minister of my King. I take sides against +injustice, disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, +princes, landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God’s rule +and worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the +world’s affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow-servants +of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast antagonism. + + + +2. THE WILL OF GOD + + +It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem most +arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will relate of +a close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, the aims +of his kingship. And just as they advance no proof whatever of the +existence of God but their realisation of him, so with regard to these +qualities and dispositions they have little argument but profound +conviction. What they say is this; that if you do not feel God then +there is no persuading you of him; we cannot win over the incredulous. +And what they say of his qualities is this; that if you feel God then +you will know, you will realise more and more clearly, that thus and +thus and no other is his method and intention. + +It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full +implications of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it asserted +that the first purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of +knowledge as a means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to +power. For that he must use human eyes and hands and brains. + +And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only beginning +to apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as time goes on. But +it is possible to define the broad outlines of the attainment he seeks. +It is the conquest of death. + +It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the +individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an +undying purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to +threaten our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. God +fights against death in every form, against the great death of the +race, against the petty death of indolence, insufficiency, baseness, +misconception, and perversion. He it is and no other who can deliver us +“from the body of this death.” This is the battle that grows plainer; +this is the purpose to which he calls us out of the animal’s round of +eating, drinking, lusting, quarrelling and laughing and weeping, fearing +and failing, and presently of wearying and dying, which is the +whole life that living without God can give us. And from these great +propositions there follow many very definite maxims and rules of life +for those who serve God. These we will immediately consider. + + + +3. THE CRUCIFIX + + +But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind +of intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and the +vaguer sort of Christianity. There are a number of people closely in +touch with those who have found the new religion who, biased probably +by a dread of too complete a break with Christianity, have adopted a +theogony which is very reminiscent of Gnosticism and of the Paulician, +Catharist, and kindred sects to which allusion has already been made. +He, who is called in this book God, they would call God-the-Son or +Christ, or the Logos; and what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled +Being, they would call God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as +Life, they would call, with a certain disregard of the poor brutes that +perish, Man. And they would assert, what we of the new belief, pleading +our profound ignorance, would neither assert nor deny, that that +Darkness, out of which came Life and God, since it produced them must be +ultimately sympathetic and of like nature with them. And that ultimately +Man, being redeemed and led by Christ and saved from death by him, would +be reconciled with God the Father.* And this great adventurer out of the +hearts of man that we here call God, they would present as the same with +that teacher from Galilee who was crucified at Jerusalem. + + * This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for + him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and + chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the + blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is + an escape from the “inadequate” ideas of the mortal human + personality to the “adequate” and timeless ideas of God. + +Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon this +apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. Firstly, +we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the veiled being nor +about that being’s relations to God and to Life. We do not recognise any +consistent sympathetic possibilities between these outer beings and our +God. Our God is, we feel, like Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And +the accepted figure of Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in +the tone of our worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, +but by fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the +thing that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he +cannot escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross +or chained to be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary +sufferings, like hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in +themselves bring victory. They may be necessary, but they are not +glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched +figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why +hast thou forsaken me?” these things jar with our spirit. We little men +may well fail and repent, but it is our faith that our God does not fail +us nor himself. We cannot accept the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to +a pitiful God. We cannot accept the Resurrection as though it were an +after-thought to a bitterly felt death. Our crucifix, if you must have +a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a foot already torn away from +its nail, and with eyes not downcast but resolute against the sky; a +face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in the surpassing glory of +the struggle and the inflexible will to live and prevail. . . . + +But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible the +wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is courage +beyond any conceivable suffering. + +But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns the +figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the figure of +God, and the crucifix only so far as that stands for divine action. The +figure of Christ crucified, so soon as we think of it as being no +more than the tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man who proclaimed the +loving-kindness of God and the supremacy of God’s kingdom over +the individual life, and who, in the extreme agony of his pain and +exhaustion, cried out that he was deserted, becomes something altogether +distinct from a theological symbol. Immediately that we cease to +worship, we can begin to love and pity. Here was a being of extreme +gentleness and delicacy and of great courage, of the utmost tolerance +and the subtlest sympathy, a saint of non-resistance. . . . + +We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We are +the militant followers of and participators in a militant God. We can +appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle being upon +whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is the remotest +quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is the completest +inversion of his likeness as we know him. A Christianity which shows, +for its daily symbol, Christ risen and trampling victoriously upon a +broken cross, would be far more in the spirit of our worship.* + + * It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a + letter written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that + pertinacious correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, + almost exactly the same sentiments I have here expressed. + “If I could fill the Crucifix with life as you do,” he says, + “I would gladly look on it, but the fallen Head and the + closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of glorified + humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who ‘hath + been crucified,’ who hath passed the trial victoriously and + borne the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this + side of the glory.” + +I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit +in a tract, “The Call of the Kingdom,” by that very able and subtle, +Anglican theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the +vitalising stresses of the war we are winning “faith in Christ as an +heroic leader. We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle that +there is no ground in our picture of Him, for the vision which His +disciple had of Him: ‘His head and His hair were white, as white wool, +white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire: and His feet like +unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and His +voice was as the voice of many waters. And He had in His right hand +seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and +His countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength.’” + +These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how +clearly parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + + + +4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + + +Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite +intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth +and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to +our inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the +chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we +who have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be +equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share +with him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and +clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, +and every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in +ourselves but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment +of his real and visible kingdom throughout the world. + +And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not +merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but +that the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric +of the world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the +village school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market +town, in the mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman’s +house. It means that ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor +is to disfigure our coins and stamps any more; God himself and no +delegate is to be represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters +and our receipts, a perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no +act altogether without significance, no power so humble that it may not +be used for or against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To +realise God in one’s heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, +and the way of his service is neither to pull up one’s life by the +roots nor to continue it in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it +about, to turn everything that there is in it round into his way. + +The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the +abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves, +but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt +to be utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to +keep oneself fit and bright for God’s service, and to increase one’s +knowledge and powers, and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one’s +baser motives, a watch against fear and indolence, against vanity, +against greed and lust, against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To +have found God truly does in itself make God’s service one’s essential +motive, but these evils lurk in the shadows, in the lassitudes and +unwary moments. No one escapes them altogether, there is no need for +tragic moods on account of imperfections. We can no more serve God +without blunders and set-backs than we can win battles without losing +men. But the less of such loss the better. The servant of God must keep +his mind as wide and sound and his motives as clean as he can, just as +an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and muscles as fit and his +hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously evade exercise and +regular washing--of mind as of hands. An incessant watchfulness of +one’s self and one’s thoughts and the soundness of one’s thoughts; +cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and prejudice, +careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; these are +the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to God will, +as a matter of course, set before himself. + + + +5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + + +Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will be +more convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present pursue +the idea of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment he calls +us. This kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all +mankind upon certain divine ends. These, we conceive, are first, +the maintenance of the racial life; secondly, the exploration of the +external being of nature as it is and as it has been, that is to +say history and science; thirdly, that exploration of inherent human +possibility which is art; fourthly, that clarification of thought and +knowledge which is philosophy; and finally, the progressive enlargement +and development of the racial life under these lights, so that God may +work through a continually better body of humanity and through better +and better equipped minds, that he and our race may increase for ever, +working unendingly upon the development of the powers of life and the +mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout the deeps of space. He +sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer ourselves and our world +and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can as yet see nothing, our +imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of our understanding is +the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from us. . . . + +It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality +that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden. . . . + +But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of +this earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives must +fall and our consciences adapt themselves. + +Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost necessarily a +conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. Each believer as he +grasps this natural and immediate consequence of the faith that has come +into his life will form at the same time a Utopian conception of this +world changed in the direction of God’s purpose. The vision will follow +the realisation of God’s true nature and purpose as a necessary +second step. And he will begin to develop the latent citizen of this +world-state in himself. He will fall in with the idea of the world-wide +sanities of this new order being drawn over the warring outlines of the +present, and of men falling out of relationship with the old order and +into relationship with the new. Many men and women are already working +to-day at tasks that belong essentially to God’s kingdom, tasks that +would be of the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; +for example, they are doing or sustaining scientific research or +education or creative art; they are making roads to bring men together, +they are doctors working for the world’s health, they are building +homes, they are constructing machinery to save and increase the powers +of men. . . . + +Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will +change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a little +while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come in chiefly +from the west, to become open and confessed servants of God. This work +that they were doing for ambition, or the love of men or the love of +knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to the work itself, or for +money or honour or country or king, they will realise they are doing for +God and by the power of God. Self-transformation into a citizen of God’s +kingdom and a new realisation of all earthly politics as no more than +the struggle to define and achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, +follow on, without any need for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the +moment when God and the believer meet and clasp one another. + +This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely +fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such general +theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. But to anyone +who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a little from the +obsession of existing but transitory things, it ceases to be a mere +suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly the real future of +mankind. From the phase of “so things should be,” the mind will pass +very rapidly to the realisation that “so things will be.” Towards this +the directive wills among men have been drifting more and more steadily +and perceptibly and with fewer eddyings and retardations, for many +centuries. The purpose of mankind will not be always thus confused and +fragmentary. This dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the +warring tribes and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries +or so ago, draws to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a +metaphor, not a mere spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain +project; it is the thing before us, it is the close and inevitable +destiny of mankind. + +In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading about +the world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears here and +there to-day, like that little twittering of birds which comes before +the dawn, will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In but a few +centuries the whole world will be openly, confessedly, preparing for +the kingdom. In but a few centuries God will have led us out of the dark +forest of these present wars and confusions into the open brotherhood of +his rule. + + + +6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + + +This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation at +thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, partisan, +nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into the coherent +development of the world kingdom of God, provides the form into which +everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will naturally seek to fit +his every thought and activity. The material greeds, the avarice, +fear, rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a disordered world will be +challenged and examined under one general question: “What am I in the +kingdom of God?” + +It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing number +of occupations that belong already to God’s kingdom, research, teaching, +creative art, creative administration, cultivation, construction, +maintenance, and the honest satisfaction of honest practical human +needs. For such people conversion to the intimacy of God means at most +a change in the spirit of their work, a refreshed energy, a clearer +understanding, a new zeal, a completer disregard of gains and praises +and promotion. Pay, honours, and the like cease to be the inducement of +effort. Service, and service alone, is the criterion that the quickened +conscience will recognise. + +Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which service +is mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service is a little +warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by mercenary and +commercial considerations, by some inherent or special degradation of +purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer rest until his life +is readjusted and as far as possible freed from the waste of these base +diversions. For example a scientific investigator, lit and inspired by +great inquiries, may be hampered by the conditions of his professorship +or research fellowship, which exact an appearance of “practical” + results. Or he may be obliged to lecture or conduct classes. He may +be able to give but half his possible gift to the work of his real +aptitude, and that at a sacrifice of money and reputation among +short-sighted but influential contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature +an investigator he will know that the research is what God needs of him. +He cannot continue it at all if he leaves his position, and so he must +needs waste something of his gift to save the rest. But should a poorer +or a humbler post offer him better opportunity, there lies his work for +God. There one has a very common and simple type of the problems that +will arise in the lives of men when they are lit by sudden realisation +of the immediacy of God. + +Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician between +the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one hand, and +the lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy people on the +other. He belongs to a profession that is crippled by a mediaeval code, +a profession which was blind to the common interest of the Public Health +and regarded its members merely as skilled practitioners employed to +“cure” individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of +the profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of +devoted men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as +a whole, broadening out from the frowsy den of the “leech,” with its +crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and +illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing +and economic life of the community. + +And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble of +the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and his +divine impulse on the other. + +The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every decision +that must be made by men and women in these more or less vitiated, but +still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + +The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a man +who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business enterprise +or the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need of manufactures +and that goods should be distributed; land must be administered and +new economic possibilities developed. The drift of things is in the +direction of state ownership and control, but in a great number of +cases the state is not ripe for such undertakings, it commands neither +sufficient integrity nor sufficient ability, and the proprietor of +factory, store, credit or land, must continue in possession, holding as +a trustee for God and, so far as lies in his power, preparing for his +supersession by some more public administration. Modern religion admits +of no facile flights from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort +to the wilderness and sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts +among scorpions in a cave as no better than a deserter in hiding. It +unhesitatingly forbids any rich young man to sell all that he has and +give to the poor. Himself and all that he has must be alike dedicated to +God. + +The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and of +every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes aware of +God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the maximum of +possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the least private +profit. He may set aside a salary for his maintenance; the rest he must +deal with like a zealous public official. And if he perceives that the +affair could be better administered by other hands than his own, then it +is his business to get it into those hands with the smallest delay and +the least profit to himself. . . . + +The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right and +wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has a +RIGHT to his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man is not +justified in drawing the profits from an advantageous agreement nor free +to spend the profits of a speculation as he will. God takes no heed of +savings nor of abstinence. He recognises no right to the “rewards of +abstinence,” no right to any rewards. Those profits and comforts and +consolations are the inducements that dangle before the eyes of the +spiritually blind. Wealth is an embarrassment to the religious, for God +calls them to account for it. The servant of God has no business with +wealth or power except to use them immediately in the service of God. +Finding these things in his hands he is bound to administer them in the +service of God. + +The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged communism +of the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the scribes and +Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and bones and house and +acres, he takes skill and influence and expectations. For all the rest +of your life you are nothing but God’s agent. If you are not prepared +for so complete a surrender, then you are infinitely remote from God. +You must go your way. Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps +you have been desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as +a possession. You have not begun to understand. This that we are +discussing in this book is as yet nothing for you. + + + +7. ADJUSTING LIFE + + +This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this +present world and the discovery and realisation of one’s own place and +work in and for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase in the +development of the believer. He will set about revising and adjusting +his scheme of life, his ways of living, his habits and his relationships +in the light of his new convictions. + +Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain +righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap +only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind +that have brought them to God will already have brought their lives into +a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there +will be someone to whom the self-examination that follows conversion +will reveal an entirely wrong and evil way of living. It may be that the +light has come to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable +routine. Or to someone following some highly profitable and amusing, +but socially useless or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an +advocate at the disposal of any man’s purpose, or an actor or actress +ready to fall in with any theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may +find herself a prostitute or a pet wife, a mere kept instrument of +indulgence. These are lives of prey, these are lives of futility; the +light of God will not tolerate such lives. Here religion can bring +nothing but a severance from the old way of life altogether, a break and +a struggle towards use and service and dignity. + +But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong +the new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the old. +Every sort of experience that has ever come to a human being is in the +self that he brings to God, and there is no reason why a knowledge +of evil ways should not determine the path of duty. No one can better +devise protections against vices than those who have practised them; +none know temptations better than those who have fallen. If a man has +followed an evil trade, it becomes him to use his knowledge of the +tricks of that trade to help end it. He knows the charities it may claim +and the remedies it needs. . . . + +A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of +adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under +contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the opportunity +for examining the relation of an ordinary self-respecting worldly life, +to life under the dispensation of God discovered. A barrister is +usually a man of some energy and ambition, his honour is moulded by +the traditions of an ancient and antiquated profession, instinctively +self-preserving and yet with a real desire for consistency and respect. +As a profession it has been greedy and defensively conservative, but it +has never been shameless nor has it ever broken faith with its own large +and selfish, but quite definite, propositions. It has never for instance +had the shamelessness of such a traditionless and undisciplined class +as the early factory organisers. It has never had the dull incoherent +wickedness of the sort of men who exploit drunkenness and the turf. It +offends within limits. Barristers can be, and are, disbarred. But it is +now a profession extraordinarily out of date; its code of honour derives +from a time of cruder and lower conceptions of human relationship. It +apprehends the State as a mere “ring” kept about private disputations; +it has not begun to move towards the modern conception of the collective +enterprise as the determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its +business as a mere play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or +between men and men. They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer +wrongs, they evade dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and +compensations. The primary business of the law is held to be decision in +these wrangles, and as wrangling is subject to artistic elaboration, the +business of the barrister is the business of a professional wrangler; he +is a bravo in wig and gown who fights the duels of ordinary men because +they are incapable, very largely on account of the complexities of legal +procedure, of fighting for themselves. His business is never to explore +any fundamental right in the matter. His business is to say all that can +be said for his client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said +against his client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain +and the United States of America is the judge, and whose habits and +interests all incline him to disregard the realities of the case in +favour of the points in the forensic game, then adjudicates upon the +contest. . . . + +Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern +conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the world is +openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court will exist only +to adjust the differing views of men as to the manner of their service +to God; the only right of action one man will have against another will +be that he has been prevented or hampered or distressed by the other in +serving God. The idea of the law court will have changed entirely from a +place of dispute, exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The +individual or some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON +GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against +the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of +legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. +. . . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not +otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and +administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity +is one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction +that it was not Christianity that took possession of the Roman empire, +but an imperial adventurer who took possession of an all too complaisant +Christianity. + +Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the religious +from which they arose, it will have become evident that the essential +work of anyone who is conversant with the existing practice and +literature of the law and whose natural abilities are forensic, will lie +in the direction of reconstructing the theory and practice of the law +in harmony with modern conceptions, of making that theory and practice +clear and plain to ordinary men, of reforming the abuses of the +profession by working for the separation of bar and judiciary, for the +amalgamation of the solicitors and the barristers, and the like needed +reforms. These are matters that will probably only be properly set right +by a quickening of conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of +men is the help and service so necessary to the practical establishment +of God’s kingdom, as of men learned and experienced in the law. And +there is no reason why for the present an advocate should not continue +to plead in the courts, provided he does his utmost only to handle cases +in which he believes he can serve the right. Few righteous cases are +ill-served by a frank disposition on the part of lawyer and client +to put everything before the court. Thereby of course there arises a +difficult case of conscience. What if a lawyer, believing his client to +be in the right, discovers him to be in the wrong? He cannot throw up +the case unless he has been scandalously deceived, because so he would +betray the confidence his client has put in him to “see him through.” He +has a right to “give himself away,” but not to “give away” his client +in this fashion. If he has a chance of a private consultation I think he +ought to do his best to make his client admit the truth of the case and +give in, but failing this he has no right to be virtuous on behalf of +another. No man may play God to another; he may remonstrate, but that +is the limit of his right. He must respect a confidence, even if it is +purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that here the barrister is in a +cleft stick, and that he must see the business through according to the +confidence his client has put in him--and afterwards be as sorry as he +may be if an injustice ensues. And also I would suggest a lawyer +may with a fairly good conscience defend a guilty man as if he were +innocent, to save him from unjustly heavy penalties. . . . + +This comparatively full discussion of the barrister’s problem has been +embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical fashion, +just those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in real life. +Religious conviction gives us a general direction, but it stands aside +from many of these entangled struggles in the jungle of conscience. +Practice is often easier than a rule. In practice a lawyer will know +far more accurately than a hypothetical case can indicate, how far he is +bound to see his client through, and how far he may play the keeper of +his client’s conscience. And nearly every day there happens instances +where the most subtle casuistry will fail and the finger of conscience +point unhesitatingly. One may have worried long in the preparation and +preliminaries of the issue, one may bring the case at last into the +final court of conscience in an apparently hopeless tangle. Then +suddenly comes decision. + +The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man states +his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and the special +pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case lies bare and +plain. + + + +8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + + +The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in existing +governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with the +acceptance of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At the +worst Caesar is a usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at the +best he is provisional. Modern casuistry makes no great trouble for the +believing public official. The chief business of any believer is to do +the work for which he is best fitted, and since all state affairs are +to become the affairs of God’s kingdom it is of primary importance that +they should come into the hands of God’s servants. It is scarcely less +necessary to a believing man with administrative gifts that he should be +in the public administration, than that he should breathe and eat. And +whatever oath or the like to usurper church or usurper king has been +set up to bar access to service, is an oath imposed under duress. If it +cannot be avoided it must be taken rather than that a man should become +unserviceable. All such oaths are unfair and foolish things. They +exclude no scoundrels; they are appeals to superstition. Whenever an +opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, the servant of God will +seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he will take it. + +The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of +statement; it is to do as much as one can of God’s work. + + + +9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + + +It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official and +his oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged minister of +religion who finds that faith in the true God has ousted his formal +beliefs. + +This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the intellectual +life of the last hundred years. It has been increasingly difficult for +any class of reading, talking, and discussing people such as are the +bulk of the priesthoods of the Christian churches to escape hearing and +reading the accumulated criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the +popularly accepted story of man’s fall and salvation. Some have no doubt +defeated this universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and +honestly established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the +articles and disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the +creeds they profess and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their +positions in the priesthood. But a great number have neither resisted +the bacillus of criticism nor left the churches to which they are +attached. They have adopted compromises, they have qualified their +creeds with modifying footnotes of essential repudiation; they +have decided that plain statements are metaphors and have undercut, +transposed, and inverted the most vital points of the vulgarly accepted +beliefs. One may find within the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, +Atheists, disbelievers in immortality, attenuators of miracles; there +is scarcely a doubt or a cavil that has not found a lodgment within the +ample charity of the English Establishment. I have been interested to +hear one distinguished Canon deplore that “they” did not identify the +Logos with the third instead of the second Person of the Trinity, and +another distinguished Catholic apologist declare his indifference to +the “historical Jesus.” Within most of the Christian communions one may +believe anything or nothing, provided only that one does not call too +public an attention to one’s eccentricity. The late Rev. Charles Voysey, +for example, preached plainly in his church at Healaugh against the +divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only when he published his +sermons under the provocative title of “The Sling and the Stone,” and +caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that he was +indicted and deprived. + +Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in +which they find themselves are often very plausible. It is probable that +in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious +dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child. +It has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development +and controversy that beliefs have been really sharp. A creed, like a +coin, it may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is +worn, or bears the image of a vanished king. The religious life is a +reality that has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of +the priest or minister is with the religious life and not with the poor +symbols that may indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact +no more than indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain +that the church and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of +religion, that the religious life is sustained not by its propositions +but by its routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of +spiritual things with professional divines, will find this is the +substance of the case for the ecclesiastical sceptic. His church, he +will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where else is truth? +What better formulae are to be found for ineffable things? And +meanwhile--he does good. + +That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess +the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a +matter of ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy +to understand. + +Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. If +a professional religious has any justification at all for his +professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and +greatness of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are not +proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion of what +should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a priest pretend +to do when his primary business is the truth and his method a lie? The +oaths and incidental conformities of men who wish to serve God in the +state are on a different footing altogether from the falsehood and +mischief of one who knows the true God and yet recites to a trustful +congregation, foists upon a trustful congregation, a misleading and +ill-phrased Levantine creed. + +Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of his +temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every ordained +priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that he has truly +realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to repeat his creed +again. His course seems plain and clear. It becomes him to stand up +before the flock he has led in error, and to proclaim the being and +nature of the one true God. He must be explicit to the utmost of his +powers. Then he may await his expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is +sufficient for him to go away silently, making false excuses or none at +all for his retreat. He has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of +his conforming years. + + + +10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + + +Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from God? + +This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it +reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious +interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and the +Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion sweeps past +and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans and Methodists, +in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of God. Arminians seem +merely to have insisted that God has conditioned himself, and by his +own free act left men free to accept or reject salvation. To the realist +type of mind--here as always I use “realist” in its proper sense as +the opposite of nominalist--to the old-fashioned, over-exact and +over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague +and unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of +intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not +Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that +there is no clear line to be drawn between the saved and the lost. +Realists like an exclusive flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a +natural weakness of humanity to be forced into extreme positions by +argument. It is probable, as I have already suggested, that the absolute +attributes of God were forced upon Christianity under the stresses +of propaganda, and it is probable that the theory of a super-human +obstinancy beyond salvation arose out of the irritations natural to +theological debate. It is but a step from the realisation that there are +people absolutely unable or absolutely unwilling to see God as we see +him, to the conviction that they are therefore shut off from God by an +invincible soul blindness. + +It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + +Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there are +those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our experience. +They are people answering to the “hard-hearted,” to the “stiff-necked +generation” of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and even confess +to standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They show themselves +incapable of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty or truth or +goodness. They are altogether remote from intelligent sacrifice. To +every test they betray vileness of texture; they are mean, cold, wicked. +There are people who seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are +ever ready to do harsh and cruel things, whose use for social feeling +is the malignant boycott, and for prosperity, monopolisation and +humiliating display; who seize upon religion and turn it into +persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on the altars of some joyless +vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no use for them, and it is +very easy indeed to step from that persuasion to the belief that God has +no use for them. + +And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the people +with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the few broad +and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we experience, who +lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful conceptions of God, +and are apparently quite incapable of distinguishing between what is +practically and what is spiritually good. + +It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way to +God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which we +of course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper or the +pickpocket or the “smart” woman or the loan-monger or the village +oaf than he is of the swine in the sty. But are we justified in +thus limiting God to the measure of our moral and intellectual +understandings? Because some people seem to me steadfastly and +consistently base or hopelessly and incurably dull and confused, does +it follow that there are not phases, albeit I have never chanced to see +them, of exaltation in the one case and illumination in the other? And +may I not be a little restricting my perception of Good? While I have +been ready enough to pronounce this or that person as being, so far as +I was concerned, thoroughly damnable or utterly dull, I find a curious +reluctance to admit the general proposition which is necessary for +these instances. It is possible that the difference between Arminian and +Calvinist is a difference of essential intellectual temperament rather +than of theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally Arminian as I am +temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the nature of God +to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can only suspect, +and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + +Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you think, +as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and damned, then +I cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other people can be damned. +But that is not to believe that there are people damned at the outset by +their moral and intellectual insufficiency; that is not to make out that +there is a class of essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The +religious life preceded clear religious understanding and extends far +beyond its range. + +In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to true +belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. The +essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. I am +passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own mind, and +to make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and particularly +to other people who may seem to be feeling with me; I do perceive that +error is evil if only because a faith based on confused conceptions +and partial understandings may suffer irreparable injury through the +collapse of its substratum of ideas. I doubt if faith can be complete +and enduring if it is not secured by the definite knowledge of the true +God. Yet I have also to admit that I find the form of my own religious +emotion paralleled by people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy +and no agreement in phrase or formula at all. + +There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling and +this discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as myself +and a convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself in phrases +and images of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs and fountains of +precious blood, a most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom to me, and +expressing itself by shouts, clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and +rhythmic pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object +sought, release from self, and the same end, the end of identification +with the immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. +I see God indubitably present in these excitements, and I see +personalities I could easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for +spiritual understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. +One may be led into the absurdest underestimates of religious +possibilities if one estimates people only coldly and in the light of +everyday life. There is a sub-intellectual religious life which, very +conceivably, when its utmost range can be examined, excludes nothing +human from religious cooperation, which will use any words to its tune, +which takes its phrasing ready-made from the world about it, as it takes +the street for its temple, and yet which may be at its inner point in +the directest contact with God. Religion may suffer from aphasia and +still be religion; it may utter misleading or nonsensical words and yet +intend and convey the truth. The methods of the Salvation Army are older +than doctrinal Christianity, and may long survive it. Men and women may +still chant of Beulah Land and cry out in the ecstasy of salvation; the +tambourine, that modern revival of the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, +may still stir dull nerves to a first apprehension of powers and a call +beyond the immediate material compulsion of life, when the creeds of +Christianity are as dead as the lore of the Druids. + +The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies may +be accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release among types +and strata that by the standards of a trained and explicit intellectual, +may seem spiritually hopeless. It is not necessary to imagine the whole +world critical and lucid in order to imagine the whole world unified in +religious sentiment, comprehending the same phrases and coming together +regardless of class and race and quality, in the worship and service +of the true God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than +hieratic tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head +grows clear the body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of +men modern religion says, “This is the God it has always been in your +nature to apprehend.” + + + +11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + + +Now that we are discussing the general question of individual conduct, +it will be convenient to take up again and restate in that relationship, +propositions already made very plainly in the second and third chapters. +Here there are several excellent reasons for a certain amount of +deliberate repetition. . . . + +All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with +religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a part +in most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern faith. Let +us be as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned by the health and +fitness and vigour of his servants; we owe him our best and utmost; but +he has no special concern and no special preferences or commandments +regarding sexual things. + +Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he +welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in +adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand between +him and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity of the creeds, +in this as in so many respects, does not rise to the level of its +founder, and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as though the name +of Christ had not been ascendant for nineteen centuries, that sex is +a secondary thing to religion, and sexual status of no account in +the presence of God. It follows quite logically that God does not +discriminate between man and woman in any essential things. We leave our +individuality behind us when we come into the presence of God. Sex is +not disavowed but forgotten. Just as one’s last meal is forgotten--which +also is a difference between the religious moment of modern faith and +certain Christian sacraments. You are a believer and God is at hand +to you; heed not your state; reach out to him and he is there. In the +moment of religion you are human; it matters not what else you are, +male or female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or Gentile, bond or free. It +is AFTER the moment of religion that we become concerned about our state +and the manner in which we use ourselves. + +We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual +treatment of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the +king of the whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and all +things. He is not particularly concerned about any aspect, because he is +concerned about every aspect. We have to make the best use of ourselves +for his kingdom; that is our rule of life. That rule means neither +painful nor frantic abstinences nor any forced way of living. Purity, +cleanliness, health, none of these things are for themselves, they are +for use; none are magic, all are means. The sword must be sharp and +clean. That does not mean that we are perpetually to sharpen and clean +it--which would weaken and waste the blade. The sword must neither be +drawn constantly nor always rusting in its sheath. Those who have had +the wits and soul to come to God, will have the wits and soul to find +out and know what is waste, what is vanity, what is the happiness that +begets strength of body and spirit, what is error, where vice begins, +and to avoid and repent and recoil from all those things that degrade. +These are matters not of the rule of life but of the application +of life. They must neither be neglected nor made disproportionally +important. + +To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It +is difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can +be very fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also +linked to God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and +the changes of years they can be held steadfast by his undying +steadfastness. But it has been felt by many deep-feeling people that +there is so much kindred between the love and trust of husband and wife +and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to consider the +former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that close love of mated +man and woman, they are so intent upon its permanence and completeness +and to lift the dear relationship out of the ruck of casual and +transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it were, into the very +presence and assent of God. There are many who dream and desire that +they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more who would +fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest desire to +make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the world +the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of such +a sacramental union. + +There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only +after years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by +vows and promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and +spirit; and it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it, +and God. And the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like +the love of God, is, even then, not the relationship of the man and +woman as man and woman but the comradeship and trust and mutual help +and pity that joins them. No doubt that from the mutual necessities of +bodily love and the common adventure, the necessary honesties and helps +of a joint life, there springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and +best of human companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of +mortal comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary +coming together and pairing off of men and women is in itself divine or +sacramental or anything of the sort. Being in love is a condition that +may have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part +an experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often +love only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is +greed, it is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, +it is the instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is +adventure, it is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores ‘lovers’ +meet and part. Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God in +themselves or others. + +Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no reason +why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness should be +made an obligation upon all men and women who are attracted by one +another, nor why it should be woven into the essentials of religion. +For women much more than for men is this confusion dangerous, lest a +personal love should shape and dominate their lives instead of God. “He +for God only; she for God in him,” phrases the idea of Milton and of +ancient Islam; it is the formula of sexual infatuation, a formula quite +easily inverted, as the end of Goethe’s Faust (“The woman soul leadeth +us upward and on”) may witness. The whole drift of modern religious +feeling is against this exaggeration of sexual feeling, these moods of +sexual slavishness, in spiritual things. Between the healthy love +of ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of God, there is +an essential contrast and opposition in this, that preference, +exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of the former +and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is the +intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the +latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It +may be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest +unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and +romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they +have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved +for God and a devotion that is normally evoked only by little children +in their mother’s heart. It is not the way between most of the men and +women one meets in this world. + +But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is nothing +else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + + + +1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + + +If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain and +read Metchnikoff’s “Nature of Man,” he will find there an interesting +summary of the biological facts that bear upon and destroy the delusion +that there is such a thing as individual perfection, that there is even +ideal perfection for humanity. With an abundance of convincing +instances Professor Metchnikoff demonstrates that life is a system of +“disharmonies,” capable of no perfect way, that there is no “perfect” + dieting, no “perfect” sexual life, no “perfect” happiness, no “perfect” + conduct. He releases one from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption +that there is even an ideal “perfection” in organic life. He sweeps out +of the mind with all the confidence and conviction of a physiological +specialist, any idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable +perfect man. It is in the nature of every man to fall short at every +point from perfection. From the biological point of view we are as +individuals a series of involuntary “tries” on the part of an imperfect +species towards an unknown end. + +Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. +We are disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to the +defects of our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our teeth or +to those vestigial structures of our body that endanger our physical +welfare. Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not an inch +to our spiritual and moral stature. + + + +2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + + +Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by the +term “damnation,” in the light of this view of human reality. Most of +the great world religions are as clear as Professor Metchnikoff that +life in the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and in most cases they +supply a more or less myth-like explanation, they declare that evil is +one side of the conflict between Ahriman and Ormazd, or that it is the +punishment of an act of disobedience, of the fall of man and world alike +from a state of harmony. Their case, like his, is that THIS world is +damned. + +We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this +world there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after death, +so nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear to be +an exploit of theory; they have a superadded appearance even in the +Christian system; the same common tendency to superlatives and absolutes +that makes men ashamed to admit that God is finite, makes them seek to +enhance the merits of their Saviour by the device of everlasting fire. +Conquest over the sorrow of life and the fear of death do not seem to +them sufficient for Christ’s glory. + +Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the +universe as something derived deductively from the past to a conception +of it as something gathering itself adventurously towards the future, +involves a release from the supposed necessity to tell a story and +explain why. Instead comes the inquiry, “To what end?” We can say +without mental discomfort, these disharmonies are here, this damnation +is here--inexplicably. We can, without any distressful inquiry into +ultimate origins, bring our minds to the conception of a spontaneous and +developing God arising out of those stresses in our hearts and in the +universe, and arising to overcome them. Salvation for the individual +is escape from the individual distress at disharmony and the individual +defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. And damnation can be nothing +more and nothing less than the failure or inability or disinclination to +make that escape. + +Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for salvation +has crept at a number of points into contemporary religious thought. It +was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the damned go to their own hells +of their own accord. It underlies a queer poem, “Simpson,” by that +interesting essayist upon modern Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which +I have recently read. Simpson dies and goes to hell--it is rather like +the Cromwell Road--and approves of it very highly, and then and then +only is he completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is +certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock’s idea. It is his definition +of damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is damnation. It is +surrender to limitation; it is acquiescence in “disharmony”; it is +making peace with that enemy against whom God fights for ever. + +(But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for ever +remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous chapter, +a quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me from the +Calvinistic conclusion of Mr. Brock’s satire.) + + + +3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + + +Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by +nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, as +we have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is an +incident. One is an essential and the other an incidental separation +from God. It is possible to sin without being damned; and to be +damned is to be in a state when sin scarcely matters, like ink upon a +blackamoor. You cannot have questions of more or less among absolute +things. + +It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as +the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always +in touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever +have any motive again that is not also God’s motive. Then one +finds oneself caught unawares by a base impulse. We discover +that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous selves, the +unincorporated and warring elements that seemed at first altogether +absent from the synthesis of conversion. We are tripped up by +forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by tricks of appearance. +There come dull patches of existence; those mysterious obliterations of +one’s finer sense that are due at times to the little minor poisons one +eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill-health and bodily disorder, or +one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of emotion, brewed deep in +the animal being and released by any trifling accident, such as personal +jealousy or lust, or one is relaxed by contentment into vanity. +All these rebel forces of our ill-coordinated selves, all these +“disharmonies,” of the inner being, snatch us away from our devotion to +God’s service, carry us off to follies, offences, unkindness, waste, and +leave us compromised, involved, and regretful, perplexed by a hundred +difficulties we have put in our own way back to God. + +This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God can +help us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such reparation +as we can, to begin the battle again further back and lower down. From +God comes the power to anticipate the struggle with one’s rebel self, +and to resist and prevail over it. + + + +4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + + +An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + +It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several +lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper +in these institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or +selected in some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go out +to their addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and as the +author of various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that is, to any +one much forced back upon reading, the writer is particularly accessible +to this type of correspondent. The letters come, some manifesting +a hopeless disorder that permits of no reply, but some being the +expression of minds overlaid not at all offensively by a web of fantasy, +and some (and these are the more touching ones and the ones that most +concern us now) as sanely conceived and expressed as any letters could +be. They are written by people living lives very like the lives of us +who are called “sane,” except that they lift to a higher excitement and +fall to a lower depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or +melancholia slip the leash of mental consistency altogether and take +abnormal forms. They tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the safer +ways of mediocrity do but glimpse under the influence of drugs, or in +dreams and rare moments of controllable extravagance. Then the insane +become “glorious,” or they become murderous, or they become suicidal. +All these letter-writers in confinement have convinced their +fellow-creatures by some extravagance that they are a danger to +themselves or others. + +The letters that come from such types written during their sane +intervals, are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware--I think +they should know--of the offences or possibilities that justify their +incarceration, write with a certain resentment at their position; others +are entirely acquiescent, but one or two complain of the neglect of +friends and relations. But all are as manifestly capable of religion and +of the religious life as any other intelligent persons during the +lucid interludes that make up nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . +Suppose now one of these cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes +the form of some cruel, disgusting, or destructive disposition that may +become at times overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with +sinful tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that +the mania which defines his position must be the primary if not the +cardinal business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with that +is different not in kind but merely in degree from the problem of +lusts, vanities, and weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It is an +unconquered tract, a great rebel province in his being, which refuses to +serve God and tries to prevent him serving God, and succeeds at times in +wresting his capital out of his control. But his relationship to that +is the same relationship as ours to the backward and insubordinate +parishes, criminal slums, and disorderly houses in our own private +texture. + +It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only the +better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered disposition +in him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is obliged to be +the keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His beast gets loose. +His only resort is to warn those about him when he feels that jangling +or excitement of the nerves which precedes its escapes, to limit its +range, to place weapons beyond its reach. And there are plenty of human +beings very much in his case, whose beasts have never got loose or have +got caught back before their essential insanity was apparent. And there +are those uncertifiable lunatics we call men and women of “impulse” + and “strong passions.” If perhaps they have more self-control than the +really mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent +being falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than +the obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; +nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the +sedulous preparation of defences and palliatives against the return of +the storm. + +This discussion of the lunatic’s case gives us indeed, usefully coarse +and large, the lines for the treatment of every human weakness by the +servants of God. A “weakness,” just like the lunatic’s mania, becomes a +particular charge under God, a special duty for the person it affects. +He has to minimise it, to isolate it, to keep it out of mischief. If he +can he must adopt preventive measures. . . . + +These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our +usefulness to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, +they wound our self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who +would trust us, they discredit the faith we profess. If they break +through and break through again it is natural and proper that men and +women should cease to believe in our faith, cease to work with us or to +meet us frankly. . . . Our sins do everything evil to us and through us +except separate us from God. + +Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a power. +Here God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of God in his +heart can defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and undaunted +after a hundred falls, escape from the grip of lusts and revenges, make +head against despair, thrust back the very onset of madness. He is still +the same man he was before he came to God, still with his libidinous, +vindictive, boastful, or indolent vein; but now his will to prevail +over those qualities can refer to an exterior standard and an external +interest, he can draw upon a strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + + + +5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + + +But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found God. +You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment you truly +repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation as is possible +there remains no barrier between you and God. Directly you cease to hide +or deny or escape, and turn manfully towards the consequences and the +setting of things right, you take hold again of the hand of God. Though +you sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest +of you. Nothing but utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off +from God. + +There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that it +can shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you but lift +up your head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness and cry to +him, God is there, God will not fail you. A convicted criminal, frankly +penitent, and neither obdurate nor abject, whatever the evil of his +yesterdays, may still die well and bravely on the gallows to the glory +of God. He may step straight from that death into the immortal being of +God. + +This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. +There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can +stand between God and man. + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + + + +1. THE WORLD DAWN + + +As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new +religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations +are still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the +continuance of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. +There are many signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be +coming as swiftly as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may +seem at present as though nothing very much were happening, except for +the fact that the old familiar constellations of theology have become +a little pallid and lost something of their multitude of points. But +nothing fades of itself. The deep stillness of the late night is broken +by a stirring, and the morning star of creedless faith, the last and +brightest of the stars, the star that owes its light to the coming sun +is in the sky. + +There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir +before a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the +bluster of the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God +without any reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. The +Deists and Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never did that. +Their “Supreme Being” repudiated nothing. He was merely the whittled +stump of the Trinity. It is in the last few decades that the western +mind has slipped loose from this absolutist conception of God that has +dominated the intelligence of Christendom at least, for many centuries. +Almost unconsciously the new thought is taking a course that will lead +it far away from the moorings of Omnipotence. It is like a ship that +has slipped its anchors and drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and +vanishing stars, out to the open sea. . . . + + + +2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + + +In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this renascent +faith. + +For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief in +an infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds trained +under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which have hitherto +been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between pseudo-Christian +religion or denial, but also it opens the way towards the completest +understanding and sympathy and participation with the kindred movements +for release and for an intensification of the religious life, that are +going on outside the sphere of the Christian tradition and influence +altogether. Allusion has already been made to the sympathetic devotional +poetry of Rabindranath Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism +parallel with and assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + +It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is +entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an evil +entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is too easily +assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with renunciation, not +merely of self but of being, with the escape from all effort of any sort +into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed neither the spirit of China nor +of Islam nor of the every-day life of any people in the world. It is not +the spirit of the Sikh nor of these newer developments of Hindu thought. +It has never been the spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia +seem disposed to give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as +Europeans, do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we +can live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain +by escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not +a nation nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at this +moment by the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of God. This +is not an age of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in all the world +besides. + +Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that +which ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are being +thrust aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the spirit and +intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a heart-searching +Dialogue of the Dead, “How we settled our religions for ever and ever,” + between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and one of Nizam-al-Mulk’s +tame theologians. They would be drawn together by the same tribulations; +they would be in the closest sympathy against the temerity of the +moderns; they would have a common courtliness. The Quran is but little +read by Europeans; it is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that +it does not contain; there is much confusion in people’s minds between +its text and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its +followers; in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it has +chiefly to tell of is the leadership of one individualised militant God +who claims the rule of the whole world, who favours neither rank nor +race, who would lead men to righteousness. It is much more free from +sacramentalism, from vestiges of the ancient blood sacrifice, and its +associated sacerdotalism, than Christianity. The religion that +will presently sway mankind can be reached more easily from that +starting-point than from the confused mysteries of Trinitarian theology. +Islam was never saddled with a creed. With the very name “Islam” + (submission to God) there is no quarrel for those who hold the new +faith. . . . + +All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the old +beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, its +Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its “religion without theology,” its +attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to that +living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human mind almost +instinctively insists. . . . + +It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the +same God. + +So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and incidental +and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective to-day, may +be and most probably will be, in quite a few years a great flood +of religious unanimity pouring over and changing all human affairs, +sweeping away the old priesthoods and tabernacles and symbols and +shrines, the last crumb of the Orphic victim and the last rag of the +Serapeum, and turning all men about into one direction, as the ships and +houseboats swing round together in some great river with the uprush of +the tide. . . . + + + +3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + + +Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and identities +of the revived religion that has returned to them, certain questions +of organisation and assembly are being discussed. Every new religious +development is haunted by the precedents of the religion it replaces, +and it was only to be expected that among those who have recovered their +faith there should be a search for apostles and disciples, an attempt to +determine sources and to form original congregations, especially among +people with European traditions. + +These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are +imitative. This time there has been no revelation here or there; there +is no claim to a revelation but simply that God has become visible. Men +have thought and sought until insensibly the fog of obsolete theology +has cleared away. There seems no need therefore for special teachers +or a special propaganda, or any ritual or observances that will seem +to insist upon differences. The Christian precedent of a church +is particularly misleading. The church with its sacraments and its +sacerdotalism is the disease of Christianity. Save for a few doubtful +interpolations there is no evidence that Christ tolerated either blood +sacrifices or the mysteries of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses +were superadded after his martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a +gospel; he sent out not medicine men but apostles. + +No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They become +naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each will be +disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour’s attention to what +he sees. The necessary elements of religion could be written on a +post card; this book, small as it is, bulks large not by what it tells +positively but because it deals with misconceptions. We may (little +doubt have I that we do) need special propagandas and organisations to +discuss errors and keep back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free +speech and restrain the enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want +a church to keep our faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for +that there is no need for orthodoxies and controlling organisations of +statement. It is for each man to follow his own impulse, and to speak to +his like in his own fashion. + +Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name +of the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge of +religion. + +The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation +in dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the +unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by +robes and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom +Christ detested and denounced, is full of warning against the dangers of +a church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the material needs +of men, for the draining of towns, the marshalling of traffic, the +collecting of eggs, and the carrying of letters, the distribution +of bread, the notification of measles, for hygiene and economics and +suchlike affairs. The better we organise such things, the freer and +better equipped we leave men’s minds for nobler purposes, for those +adventures and experiments towards God’s purpose which are the reality +of life. But all organisations must be watched, for whatever is +organised can be “captured” and misused. Repentance, moreover, is the +beginning and essential of the religious life, and organisations (acting +through their secretaries and officials) never repent. God deals +only with the individual for the individual’s surrender. He takes no +cognisance of committees. + +Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are most +mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together is to +purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to strengthen one’s +sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of mankind. Before you +know where you are you will have exchanged the spirit of God for ESPRIT +DE CORPS. You will have reinvented the SYMBOL; you will have begun to +keep anniversaries and establish sacramental ceremonies. The disposition +to form cliques and exclude and conspire against unlike people is all +too strong in humanity, to permit of its formal encouragement. Even such +organisation as is implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living +faith coagulates as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so +much as a definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for +worship and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of little +manifest good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and place for God to +irradiate your soul. + +All these are very valid objections to the church-forming disposition. + + + +4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + + +Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out about +God. They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + +Why should they not shout and share? + +Let them express all that they desire to express in their own fashion +by themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. Let them shout +chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a gang if so they +can work the better. But let them guard themselves against the idea +that they can have God particularly or exclusively with them in any such +undertaking. Or that so they can express God rather than themselves. + +That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the idea +of a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of altars, +away from the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical cannibalism, +beyond the sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the modern spirit holds +that religion cannot be organised or any intermediary thrust between God +and man, that does not preclude infinite possibilities of organisation +and collective action UNDER God and within the compass of religion. +There is no reason why religious men should not band themselves the +better to attain specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, +there is no objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not +against subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations +that may claim to be comprehensive. + +For example there is no reason why one should not--and in many cases +there are good reasons why one should--organise or join associations +for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass very +readily into propaganda. + +Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves and +to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not merely prayer +but formal prayer and the support of others, praying in unison. The +writer does not understand this desire or need for collective prayer +very well, but there are people who appear to do so and there is no +reason why they should not assemble for that purpose. And there is +no doubt that divine poetry, divine maxims, religious thought +finely expressed, may be heard, rehearsed, collected, published, and +distributed by associations. The desire for expression implies a sort +of assembly, a hearer at least as well as a speaker. And expression has +many forms. People with a strong artistic impulse will necessarily want +to express themselves by art when religion touches them, and many arts, +architecture and the drama for example, are collective undertakings. I +do not see why there should not be, under God, associations for building +cathedrals and suchlike great still places urgent with beauty, into +which men and women may go to rest from the clamour of the day’s +confusions; I do not see why men should not make great shrines and +pictures expressing their sense of divine things, and why they should +not combine in such enterprises rather than work to fill heterogeneous +and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival and religious +clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly bring with it a +great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, and writings of +all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying places, temples and +retreats, the creation of pictures and sculptures. It is not necessary +to have priestcraft and an organised church for such ends. Such +enrichments of feeling and thought are part of the service of God. + +And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities +for research in pure science; associations for the teaching and +simplification of languages; associations for promoting and watching +education; associations for the discussion of political problems and +the determination of right policies. In all these ways men may multiply +their use by union. Only when associations seek to control things +of belief, to dictate formulae, restrict religious activities or the +freedom of religious thought and teaching, when they tend to subdivide +those who believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, do they become +antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + + + +5. THE STATE IS GOD’S INSTRUMENT + + +Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and +immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow +that religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed +essential to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round +world and all mankind, that we should see in every government, great +and small, from the council of the world-state that is presently coming, +down to the village assembly, the instrument of God’s practical control. +Religion which is free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to +a perpetual unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of +the whole organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there +will be no church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state +is God’s church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you +leave conscience and speech and writing and teaching about divine things +absolutely free, and that you try to set no nets about God. + +The world is God’s and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and +we find our freedom in him. + + + +THE ENVOY + + +So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I +believe to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and +spiritual confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It is a +statement and record; not a theory. There is nothing in all this that +has been invented or constructed by the writer; I have been but scribe +to the spirit of my generation; I have at most assembled and put +together things and thoughts that I have come upon, have transferred the +statements of “science” into religious terminology, rejected obsolescent +definitions, and re-coordinated propositions that had drifted into +opposition. Thus, I see, ideas are developing, and thus have I written +them down. It is a secondary matter that I am convinced that this trend +of intelligent opinion is a discovery of truth. The reader is told of my +own belief merely to avoid an affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + +The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing and +disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many different +schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is one that has +been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in the work of one I +am happy to write of as my friend and master, that very great American, +the late William James. It was an idea that became increasingly +important to him towards the end of his life. And it is the most +releasing idea in the system. + +Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of these +present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to what is +called Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile Deism of the +eighteenth century, of “votre Etre supreme” who bored the friends of +Robespierre, was a sterile thing, it has little relation to these modern +developments, it conceived of God as an infinite Being of no particular +character whereas God is a finite being of a very especial character. On +the other hand men and women who have set themselves, with unavoidable +theological preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual +teachings and quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that +have interwoven insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a +curious modernity about very many of Christ’s recorded sayings. Revived +religion has also, no doubt, been the receiver of many religious +bankruptcies, of Positivism for example, which failed through its bleak +abstraction and an unspiritual texture. Religion, thus restated, must, +I think, presently incorporate great sections of thought that are still +attached to formal Christianity. The time is at hand when many of the +organised Christian churches will be forced to define their positions, +either in terms that will identify them with this renascence, or that +will lead to the release of their more liberal adherents. Its probable +obligations to Eastern thought are less readily estimated by a European +writer. + +Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the privilege +and possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it is appearing +simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a crystallising +substance appears here and there in a super-saturated solution. It is +a process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. It needs no other +guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but freedom, free speech, +and honest statement. Out of the most mixed and impure solutions a +growing crystal is infallibly able to select its substance. The diamond +arises bright, definite, and pure out of a dark matrix of structureless +confusion. + +This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the +advent and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no +authorities, no teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and +struggle among the other things; simply it grows clear. There will be +no putting an end to it. It arrives inevitably, and it will continue +to separate itself out from confusing ideas. It becomes, as it were the +Koh-i-noor; it is a Mountain of Light, growing and increasing. It is an +all-pervading lucidity, a brightness and clearness. It has no head to +smite, no body you can destroy; it overleaps all barriers; it breaks +out in despite of every enclosure. It will compel all things to orient +themselves to it. + +It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be +here or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the day +comes to the ships that put to sea. + +It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + +***** This file should be named 1046-0.txt or 1046-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/1046/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/1046-0.zip b/old/1046-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d290dbb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1046-0.zip diff --git a/old/1046-h.zip b/old/1046-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bcd077 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1046-h.zip diff --git a/old/1046-h/1046-h.htm b/old/1046-h/1046-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3ccea1d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/1046-h/1046-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4605 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> + +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> + <head> + <title> + God the Invisible King, by H. G. Wells + </title> + <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + + body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } + hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} + .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } + blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} + .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} + .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} + div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } + div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; } + .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} + .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} + .pagenum {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal; + margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%; + text-align: right;} + pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +</style> + </head> + <body> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + +Project Gutenberg's God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God The Invisible King + +Author: Herbert George Wells + +Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1046] +Last Updated: September 17, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h1> + GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + </h1> + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <h2> + by H. G. Wells + </h2> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + Contents + </h2> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_PREF"> PREFACE </a> + </p> + <p class="toc"> + <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> <big><b>GOD THE INVISIBLE KING</b></big> </a> + </p> + <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + <tr> + <td> + <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER THE FIRST </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER THE SECOND </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER THE THIRD </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER THE FOURTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER THE FIFTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER THE SIXTH </a><br /><br /> <a + href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER THE SEVENTH </a> + </td> + <td> + THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION<br /> <br /> HERESIES; OR THE THINGS + THAT GOD IS NOT<br /> <br /> THE LIKENESS OF GOD<br /> <br /> THE RELIGION + OF ATHEISTS<br /> <br /> THE INVISIBLE KING<br /> <br /> MODERN IDEAS OF + SIN AND DAMNATION<br /> <br /> THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + </td> + </tr> + </table> + <p> + <br /> <br /> + </p> + <hr /> + <p> + <a name="link2H_PREF" id="link2H_PREF"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br /> + </p> + <h2> + PREFACE + </h2> + <p> + This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious + belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is not, + indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound belief in + a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its statements that need + shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the expression of a faith + different from and perhaps in several particulars opposed to his own. The + writer will be found to be sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. + Nevertheless it is well to prepare the prospective reader for statements + that may jar harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to + warn him at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no + vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas very + widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable occasion of trouble + forthwith. An issue upon which this book will be found particularly + uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that + the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly crystallised the controversies of + two centuries and formulated the creed upon which all the existing + Christian churches are based, was one of the most disastrous and one of + the least venerable of all religious gatherings, and he holds that the + Alexandrine speculations which were then conclusively imposed upon + Christianity merit only disrespectful attention at the present time. There + you have a chief possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any + awe for what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that + undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory + in this connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, + because he believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the + way of those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of + exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at + the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing + the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from among + the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to storms of + theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an ineffable mystery + and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on at their own risk. + This is a religious book written by a believer, but so far as their + beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more sceptical and more + antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer cannot tell. He is not + simply denying their God. He is declaring that there is a living God, + different altogether from that Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. + The spirit of this book is like that of a missionary who would only too + gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian divinity of shark’s teeth and + painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as + “begotten of the Father before all worlds” are no better than intellectual + shark’s teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of that + missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is zealous to + liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that stands between man and + God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds with his matter. + </p> + <p> + His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and + because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. + </p> + <p> + In a previous book, “First and Last Things” (Constable and Co.), he has + stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought as + clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that is, seems + to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and individual. The + antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the opposition of the One + and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these + oppositions express a certain structural and essential duality in the + activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition of that duality + ensue great masses of misconception. That was the substance of “First and + Last Things.” In this present book there is no further attack on + philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we work at a less + fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and religious ideas. But + just as the writer was inclined to attribute a whole world of disputation + and inexactitudes to confused thinking about the exact value of classes + and terms, so here he is disposed to think that interminable controversies + and conflicts arise out of a confusion of intention due to a double + meaning of the word “God”; that the word “God” conveys not one idea or set + of ideas, but several essentially different ideas, incompatible one with + another, and falling mainly into one or other of two divergent groups; and + that people slip carelessly from one to the other of these groups of ideas + and so get into ultimately inextricable confusions. + </p> + <p> + The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that + preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially a + struggle—obscured, of course, by many complexities—to + reconcile and get into a relationship these two separate main series of + God-ideas. + </p> + <p> + Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two antagonistic + typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by speaking of one of + them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the other as God-as-Christ or + the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; the other is the Inmost God. + The first idea was perhaps developed most highly and completely in the God + of Spinoza. It is a conception of God tending to pantheism, to an idea of + a comprehensive God as ruling with justice rather than affection, to a + conception of aloofness and awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, + which is opposed to this idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human + heart. The writer would suggest that the great outline of the theological + struggles of that phase of civilisation and world unity which produced + Christianity, was a persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two + different ideas of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God + of Nature accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the + former into a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of + stars and flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no + finer metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the + trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard + the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical + metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of + intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + </p> + <p> + And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and inhumanity, + which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, of an Infinite + God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a Holy Spirit, as + something proceeding from him, as something bridging the great gulf, a + Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the human + understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian Trinity + that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had saturated + the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in unity, are + probably the realities that account for the Third Person of the Christian + Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the discussions that + shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated by such natural and + fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, of course, complicated from + the outset; and particularly were they complicated by the identification + of the man Jesus with the theological Christ, by materialistic + expectations of his second coming, by materialistic inventions about his + “miraculous” begetting, and by the morbid speculations about virginity and + the like that arose out of such grossness. They were still further + complicated by the idea of the textual inspiration of the scriptures, + which presently swamped thought in textual interpretation. That swamping + came very early in the development of Christianity. The writer of St. + John’s gospel appears still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, + but Origen is already hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of + St. John’s gospel was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He + was emasculated mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He + quotes; his predecessor thinks. + </p> + <p> + But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of + early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition of + a position. The writer’s position here in this book is, firstly, complete + Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, entire faith + in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is the key of his + book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term God. He uses the + word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, and he uses the term + the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the universe, and he + declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in any comprehensible + terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living reality in our lives + who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking from the point of view + of practical religion, he is restricting and defining the word God, as + meaning only the personal God of mankind, he is restricting it so as to + exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence from our religious thought + and leave nothing but the essentials of the religious life. + </p> + <p> + Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an Arian + or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book acceptable + to them if they will read “the Christ God” where the writer has written + “God.” They will then differ from him upon little more than the question + whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality between the + Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their Creator God. This the + orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many pre-Nicaeans and many + heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its exact contrary. The + Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with the Manichaeans, that + the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The Christ God was his + antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. And passing beyond + Christian theology altogether a clue can still be found to many problems + in comparative theology in this distinction between the Being of Nature + (cf. Kant’s “starry vault above”) and the God of the heart (Kant’s “moral + law within”). The idea of an antagonism seems to have been cardinal in the + thought of the Essenes and the Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, + too, Buddhism seems to be “antagonistic.” On the other hand, the Moslem + teaching and modern Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the + two; God the creator is altogether and without distinction also God the + King of Mankind. Christianity stands somewhere between such complete + identification and complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude + between Father and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of + the Old Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great + religions of the world between identification, complete separation, + equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that + these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in + the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these matters. He + believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to salvation. He + believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions upon these + points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials of religion. + The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and exclusively with the + God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, and as the opinion which + seems most expressive of modern thought, that there is no reason to + suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or malignant towards men. But + if the reader believes that God is Almighty and in every way Infinite the + practical outcome is not very different. For the purposes of human + relationship it is impossible to deny that God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, + as struggling and taking a part against evil. + </p> + <p> + The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely + extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this + book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in + such speculations and disputes. + </p> + <p> + Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that + is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., 1), + nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It is + discussed in “First and Last Things,” Book IV, 4.] He omits this question + because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon the + essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the + relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is a + question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether we + are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of or a + rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of + salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of + consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and in the + world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect + righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal + death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite + for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is + identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value + than the snows of yester-year. + </p> + <p> + H. G. W. + </p> + <p> + Dunmow, May, 1917. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + </h2> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIRST + </h2> + <h3> + THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + </h3> + <p> + 1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + </p> + <p> + Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an + exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago + and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, + and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the new + belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, to trace + how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman world. But + when a religion has been interrogated it has always had hitherto a tale of + beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that + is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It + is the Truth, its believers declare; it has always been here; it has + always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps plainer + than it was and to more people—that is all. + </p> + <p> + It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those who + hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. Some, + catching at a phrase of Huxley’s, speak of it as Christianity without + Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, as a + matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed to any + belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and the + imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a + parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far + more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of that + the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. + </p> + <p> + This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the + opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme + neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect of + Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar and emotions + of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic Trinitarians stuffed + their fingers in their ears in affected horror at the arguments of old + Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity was established as the + essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those three centuries, the + centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest martyrdoms, + Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has to be noted + that a large majority of those who possess and repeat the Christian creeds + have come into the practice so insensibly from unthinking childhood, that + only in the slightest way do they realise the nature of the statements to + which they subscribe. They will speak and think of both Christ and God in + ways flatly incompatible with the doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, + theoretically, the entire fabric of all the churches rests. They will show + themselves as frankly Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been + washed out of the world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents + of blood. But whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters + may be, there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to + give Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. + Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, whatever + the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its decay. The + renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and sufficient in + many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. But it is so + coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt to state the + shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs and imperatives + and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, philosophical, and + agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. + </p> + <p> + The writer’s sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he + speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist nor + Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, + therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as + fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon + with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has + found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing + independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been + people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, + French, people brought up in a “Catholic atmosphere,” Positivists, + Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable + as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon + parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also + traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be + heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at + hand. + </p> + <p> + 2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + </p> + <p> + Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any + recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it + worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with the + plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are still + carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity dissolve + away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor all-powerful, + nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven nor earth, and + that he has little to identify him with that hereditary God of the Jews + who became the “Father” in the Christian system. On the other hand he will + assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is a spirit, a person, + a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and + lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human soul. He will be + much less certain in his denials that his God has a close resemblance to + the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) “Christ.” . . . + </p> + <p> + The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of + universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any God + and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense of God + within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the religious + experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the True God is a + generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of that bickering + monopolist who “will have none other gods but Me”; and when a human heart + cries out—to what name it matters not—for a larger spirit and + a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, straightway the + nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to the call. The + True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted the many-handed + symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. Where there is + faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready to clasp the hands + that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness behind the ivory and + gold. + </p> + <p> + The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly + among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything else, + a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, to be + limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing with us and + through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and future; he is + within time and not outside it. And they point out that this is really + what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help from God, feels and + believes. Our practice with God is better than our theory. None of us + really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a trois, the Trinity, + which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies of Alexandria and Syria + declared to be God. We pray to one single understanding person. But so far + the tactics of those Trinitarians at Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in + their ears, have prevailed in this world; this was no matter for + discussion, they declared, it was a Holy Mystery full of magical terror, + and few religious people have thought it worth while to revive these + terrors by a definite contradiction. The truly religious have been content + to lapse quietly into the comparative sanity of an unformulated Arianism, + they have left it to the scoffing Atheist to mock at the patent + absurdities of the official creed. But one magnificent protest against + this theological fantasy must have been the work of a sincerely religious + man, the cold superb humour of that burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no + doubt facetiously and then quite seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, + which, by an irony far beyond its original intention, has become at last + the accepted creed of the church. + </p> + <p> + The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to its + end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least patient + with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are very + definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth of the + Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of assuming + that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea is meant. + But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and bad + associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange + preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even + make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different + and antagonistic figure. + </p> + <p> + It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led the + theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for their + deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral quality of + the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who saddled + Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme poverty and + confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. Many of these + makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who had even to be + baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been pitchforked into + the church from civil life; they lived in a time of pitiless factions and + personal feuds; they had to conduct their disputations amidst the + struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs and favourites swayed their + counsels, and popular rioting clinched their decisions. There was less + freedom of discussion then in the Christian world than there is at present + (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience of educated opinion by which a + theory could be judged did not equal, either in numbers or accuracy of + information, the present population of Constantinople. To these conditions + we owe the claim that the Christian God is a magic god, very great + medicine in battle, “in hoc signo vinces,” and the argument so natural to + the minds of those days and so absurd to ours, that since he had ALL + power, all knowledge, and existed for ever and ever, it was no use + whatever to set up any other god against him. . . . + </p> + <p> + By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, + without which everyone was to be “damned everlastingly,” a conception of + God and of Christ’s relation to God, of which even by the Christian + account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so negligent + and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as scarcely to make + mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the relationship of the + Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one ambiguous and disputed + utterance in St. John’s gospel (XV. 26). Most of the teachings of + Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive student into + assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. Someone floats an + opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, in regard, for + example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of his birth. The new + opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds unaccustomed to so + definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil they fly to a + contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit that they + worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor deny the divinity + of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be polytheistic; equally + did they dread the least apparent detraction from the power and importance + of their Saviour. They were forced into the theory of the Trinity by the + necessity of those contrary assertions, and they had to make it a mystery + protected by curses to save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire + history of the growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early + centuries is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious + wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to clinch + matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, the church was + confronted by enormous political opportunities. In order that it should + seize these one chief thing appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The + emperor himself, albeit unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and + seated himself in the midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At + the end of it all Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn + everlastingly all those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had + doubted at the beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that + Constantine did not care who was damned or for what period, so long as the + Christians ceased to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of + Nicaea was secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he + sought by threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a + common faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of + the Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic + destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none + of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a real + knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left to work + themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist of + Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the + sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to + the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice + formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory + of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the + cement of Christian unity. + </p> + <p> + It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are + becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian’s + deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion declares + himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with self-complacency. + There is no reason why they should do so. That many of us have gone from + them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is not that we who went out + into the wilderness which we thought to be a desert, away from their + creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are returning. It is that we have + gone on still further, and are beyond that desolation. Never more shall we + return to those who gather under the cross. By faith we disbelieved and + denied. By faith we said of that stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that + incoherent accumulation of antique theological notions, the Nicene deity, + “This is certainly no God.” And by faith we have found God. . . . + </p> + <p> + 3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + </p> + <p> + There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he should + supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist thing to + say: “OUR God made the whole universe. Don’t you think that it would be + wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do anything of the + sort?” + </p> + <p> + The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this style + of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into the + Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, + demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, + the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for its + divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like Buddhism + in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin of the + universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space and time. It + sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with superlatives + which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the Hegelians with + the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or the + Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known things + there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is a Veiled + Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or ill. Of + that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we know nothing; to + us it is no more than the limit of understanding, the unknown beyond. It + may be of practically limitless intricacy and possibility. The new + religion does not pretend that the God of its life is that Being, or that + he has any relation of control or association with that Being. It does not + even assert that God knows all or much more than we do about that ultimate + Being. + </p> + <p> + For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human + analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being + reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms of + consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the ether. Some day + in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an understanding of + relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into those black + wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind will take us. + </p> + <p> + That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with the + stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled Being, + enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon which the + busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a great + stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. It may + be that they may never be able to deal with it. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + </p> + <p> + So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to the + modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and hate. It + is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out of this veiled + being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether inconceivable, is + another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through matter and clothing + itself in continually changing material forms, the maker of our world, + Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that inscrutable being as a wave + comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. It is as it were a great wave + rushing through matter and possessed by a spirit. It is a breeding, + fighting thing; it pants through the jungle track as the tiger and lifts + itself towards heaven as the tree; it is the rabbit bolting for its life + and the dove calling to her mate; it crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts + and devours, it pursues and eats itself in order to live still more + eagerly and hastily; it is every living thing, of it are our passions and + desires and fears. And it is aware of itself not as a whole, but + dispersedly as individual self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly + from every one of the sentient creatures it has called into being. They + look out for their little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, + full of the passions of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, + submitting only to brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are + beings of strain and conflict and competition. They are living substance + still mingled painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being + clothes itself bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and + bright with threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, + hold their own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and + pass. . . . + </p> + <p> + This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the + Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We may + speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant by the + Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic books that + must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether this heat and + haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the Manichees, the + evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is + no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it is + conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all the pain and conflict + of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, the delight and hope of + youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a hundred thousand sorts of + parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful limbs of man and woman; it has + shaped the slug and the flower. And in it, as part of it, taking its + rewards, responding to its goads, struggling against the final abandonment + to death, do we all live, as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, + revengeful, hopeful, weary, disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, + bored, in pain, mood after mood but always fearing death, with no + certainty and no coherence within us, until we find God. And God comes to + us neither out of the stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still + small voice within. + </p> + <p> + 5. GOD IS WITHIN + </p> + <p> + God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men + and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he + has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of + mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is by + our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, + boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our friend + and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the belief of the + modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel idea about this + God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This is the God that + men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as the Messiah or the + Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the purposelessness of life. + The new religion has but disentangled the idea of him from the absolutes + and infinities and mysteries of the Christian theologians; from + mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and intellectual + pretentiousness of a vanished age. + </p> + <p> + Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, no + mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement of what + we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of life, we + all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if we seek + salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All this is in + the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states it were to be + instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people would find their + way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. To this all true + religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, must ultimately come. + To it indeed much religion is already coming. Christian thought struggles + towards it, with the millstones of Syrian theology and an outrageous + mythology of incarnation and resurrection about its neck. When at last our + present bench of bishops join the early fathers of the church in heaven + there will be, I fear, a note of reproach in their greeting of the + ingenious person who saddled them with OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous + for them has been the virgin birth, with the terrible fascination of its + detail for unpoetic minds. How rich is the literature of authoritative + Christianity with decisions upon the continuing virginity of Mary and the + virginity of Joseph—ideas that first arose in Arabia as a Moslem + gloss upon Christianity—and how little have these peepings and + pryings to do with the needs of the heart and the finding of God! + </p> + <p> + Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes as + that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled “The Faith and the + War,” a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and + canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring and + religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting under this + load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great articles, + outside the needle’s eye that leads to God. + </p> + <p> + 6. THE COMING OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God entirely + upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue about God; it + relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe and reverence + that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as one tells of a + friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a beautiful thing + found and picked up by the wayside. + </p> + <p> + So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal + salvation tallies very closely with the account of “conversion” as it is + given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already + familiar to the reader of William James’s “Varieties of Religious + Experience.” It describes an initial state of distress with the + aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of + the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to + form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known to + many sorts of Christian as “conviction of sin”; it is, at any rate, a + conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of God + comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without + substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is expounded + by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all those of the new + faith with whose personal experience I have any intimacy, the idea of God + has remained for some time simply as an idea floating about in a mind + still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, but it is realised that if + there were such a being he would supply the needed consolation and + direction, his continuing purpose would knit together the scattered effort + of life, his immortality would take the sting from death. Under this + realisation the idea is pursued and elaborated. For a time there is a + curious resistance to the suggestion that God is truly a person; he is + spoken of preferably by such phrases as the Purpose in Things, as the + Racial Consciousness, as the Collective Mind. + </p> + <p> + I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea + of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against + divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching + and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ as + the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the idea + that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is a + novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may + think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the + Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not + seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the idea + that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so much + about that God and so little of any other. With that release their minds + become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. + </p> + <p> + Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This + cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the + attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. It + is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, + sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is + completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with and + touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It is as + if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us into + fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . + </p> + <p> + “Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.” + </p> + <p> + The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, + or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. It + may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There is no + saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come our lives + are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of God. Thereafter + one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has found a lover, + like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. One is assured that + there is a Power that fights with us against the confusion and evil within + us and without. There comes into the heart an essential and enduring + happiness and courage. + </p> + <p> + There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but + under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this + manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however mean + and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is himself + finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength to + strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens to + meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The + faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would see + God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil of the + temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of this huge + friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little beings. To + find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all our days we + have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with him. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SECOND + </h2> + <h3> + HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + </h3> + <p> + 1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake + that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living + water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is + synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; + the sediment subsides. + </p> + <p> + A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without mentality; + no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance of the + instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or nirvana. + It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord evoking the + will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need consciousness + breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the rents and tatters + in the smooth dark veil of being through which the light of consciousness + shines—the light of consciousness and will of which God is the sun. + </p> + <p> + So that every need of human life, every disappointment and dissatisfaction + and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may and do come to + the realisation of God. + </p> + <p> + There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life + from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men’s + religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel + doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their + mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from without, + the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards immortality. It is + possible to classify the appeals men make for God under the headings of + their chief system of effort, their efforts to understand, their fear and + their struggles for safety and happiness, the craving of their + restlessness for peace, their angers against disorder and their desire for + the avenger; their sexual passions and perplexities. . . . + </p> + <p> + Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort of + sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind of heresy, + its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the synthesis and + mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of God grows + clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, leads to the + endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent infirmities of the + human mind. But in these days one does not argue greatly about dogma. + Almost every conceivable error about unity, about personality, about time + and quantity and genus and species, about begetting and beginning and + limitation and similarity and every kink in the difficult mind of man, has + been thrust forward in some form of dogma. Beside the errors of thought + are the errors of emotion. Fear and feebleness go straight to the Heresies + that God is Magic or that God is Providence; restless egotism at leisure + and unchallenged by urgent elementary realities breeds the Heresies of + Mysticism, anger and hate call for God’s Judgments, and the stormy + emotions of sex gave mankind the Phallic God. Those who find themselves + possessed by the new spirit in religion, realise very speedily the + necessity of clearing the mind of all these exaggerations, transferences, + and overflows of feeling. The search for divine truth is like gold + washing; nothing is of any value until most has been swept away. + </p> + <p> + 2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + </p> + <p> + One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the most + various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from + wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are the + result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the clever + rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless variety + and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple confusions. + The former are the errors of the study, the latter the superstitions that + spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in our social structure + out of a barbaric past. + </p> + <p> + To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate doctrine + of the Trinity, dogmas about God’s absolute qualities, such odd deductions + as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of Mary and + Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox Christianity. + Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian account, expound or + recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was left for the + Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, busy, wire-pulling + Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was driving at, three + centuries after their Master was dead. . . . + </p> + <p> + Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their + inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary + perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error that + creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the limitations + upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle and disputation + across the path by which men come to God. It would not matter very much if + it were not that simpler souls are caught in these webs. Every great + religious system in the world is choked by such webs; each system has its + own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which make up doctrinal + Christianity and imprison the mind of the western world to-day, not one + seems to have been known to the nominal founder of Christianity. Jesus + Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; never spoke clearly of + the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of salvation and the significance + of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose that he left his apostles + without instructions, that were necessary to their eternal happiness, that + he could give them the Lord’s Prayer but leave them to guess at the + all-important Creed,* and that the Church staggered along blindly, putting + its foot in and out of damnation, until the “experts” of Nicaea, that + “garland of priests,” marshalled by Constantine’s officials, came to its + rescue. . . . From the conversion of Paul onward, the heresies of the + intellect multiplied about Christ’s memory and hid him from the sight of + men. We are no longer clear about the doctrine he taught nor about the + things he said and did. . . . + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Even the “Apostles’ Creed” is not traceable earlier than + the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched + formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down + for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and + used as a sort of password among the elect. +</pre> + <p> + We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at + heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to + spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in + which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. + There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, + but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand + different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks of + the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of the + Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of those + theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, who sit + on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the temples of + India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of the human + intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural heresies + that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, and which + are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to keep + constant watch. They return very insidiously. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + </p> + <p> + One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to + consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + </p> + <p> + It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our + souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to + hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of + acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led to + believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their own + souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing more + for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want him, + but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls think to + make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain things that are + supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such as saying prayers and + repeating gross praises of him, or reading in a blind, industrious way + that strange miscellany of Jewish and early Christian literature, the + Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, or making the Sabbath dull and + uncomfortable. In return for these fetishistic propitiations God is + supposed to interfere with the normal course of causation in their favour. + He becomes a celestial log-roller. He remedies unfavourable accidents, + cures petty ailments, contrives unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or + the like, he averts bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and + does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful people. + The pious are represented as being constantly delighted by these little + surprises, these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or + contrawise he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their + religious attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or + disorganises the careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is + represented as going Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a + Staffordshire worker goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is + saturated with this fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in + THE HIBBERT JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish + magazine. It is an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the + qualities of the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred + that their recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real + self-surrender, but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception + of the true God. + </p> + <p> + There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called THE + NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of various + clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen who belong + to the little school of thought which this magazine represents; it is, I + should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the Established Church of + England, that is to say within the Anglican communion of the Trinitarian + Christians. It contains among other papers a very entertaining summary by + a gentleman entitled—I cite the unusual title-page of the periodical—“Landseer + Mackenzie, Esq.,” of the views of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the + Kaiser William. They are distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie + discourses not only upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon + the relations of the weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and + honestly that God has been persistently rigging the weather against the + Germans. He points out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of + great help to the British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was + the wet state of the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders + in the winter of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in + delaying the relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the + difficult question why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, + did not, instead of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, + adopt the more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the + German stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting + their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or + gravitation. + </p> + <p> + Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only conclude + that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in the + established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity here with + nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find indeed the + essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in endless + official Christian utterances on the part of German and British and + Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently + ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long sermons—among + other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly convinced that God + can be invoked by ritual—for example by special days of national + prayer or an increased observance of Sunday—or made malignant by + neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their idea of him. The + ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of God, and + the belief of China in the magic propitiations and resentments of “Heaven” + is at least equally strong. + </p> + <p> + But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God of + luck and intervention. He is not to serve men’s ends or the ends of + nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies and + invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and weaknesses. + It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not coddle us. He has + his own ends for which he needs us. . . . + </p> + <p> + 4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + </p> + <p> + Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that calls + him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and effect to + be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling about the + order of events for our personal advantages. + </p> + <p> + The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in “Tartarin in + the Alps.” You will remember how Tartarin’s friend assured him that all + Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and far + too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, that all the + precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks guarded against + falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and the crevasses at + their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment bags. If the + mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned back by specious + excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved with incredible + daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of the whole world. + There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid soul to get through + life with a certain recklessness. And provided there is no slip into a + crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would work altogether well + if there were no crevasses. + </p> + <p> + Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. But + what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? + </p> + <p> + There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis + Younghusband called “Within.” [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the + confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence + until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and + campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he saw + much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The loss of + a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. Then + coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down by an + automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and mind. + His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost to see + the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and the torment + it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine essential + simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do so. His + confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether destroyed. + His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously he reconstructed + his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book typical of an age and + of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth reading. + </p> + <p> + That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how + near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + </p> + <p> + “The existence of an outside Providence,” he writes, “who created us, who + watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, we have + found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a Holy + Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its + fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we can + be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual impulsion + at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, is the + supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always attain to + light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too hard and it is + utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. But in a few it + bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who in some heavenly moment + of their lives have not been conscious of its presence. We may not be able + to give it outward expression, but we know that it is there.” . . . + </p> + <p> + God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining and + correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, there + is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an ill-tended + engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel guides your + steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your innocent + children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. Cherish no + delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and chance on your + own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those you care for. + Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. But God will be + with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the dark ice-cave God + will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, it is not an end. + He will be with you as you face death; he will die with you as he has died + already countless myriads of brave deaths. He will come so close to you + that at the last you will not know whether it is you or he who dies, and + the present death will be swallowed up in his victory. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + </p> + <p> + God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from + ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and + adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he makes + us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the + sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside + one, shoulder to shoulder. + </p> + <p> + The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from + life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of + the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many + mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command + services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of + indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence and + give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with the + divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how + ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed the + true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a + spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. The + true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, calling + for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must accept his + discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not by thinking + about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + </p> + <p> + 6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + </p> + <p> + Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral + indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were + more often “wrath” than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic deity + who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the influence of + the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and who became also + the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men against everything + that is unlike themselves, against strange people and cheerful people, + against unfamiliar usages and things they do not understand, embodied + itself in this conception of a malignant and partisan Deity, perpetually + “upset” by the little things people did, and contriving murder and + vengeance. Now this God would be drowning everybody in the world, now he + would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, now he would be inciting his + congenial Israelites to the most terrific pogroms. This divine + “frightfulness” is of course the natural human dislike and distrust for + queer practices or for too sunny a carelessness, a dislike reinforced by + the latent fierceness of the ape in us, liberating the latent fierceness + of the ape in us, giving it an excuse and pressing permission upon it, + handing the thing hated and feared over to its secular arm. . . . + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * It is not so generally understood as it should be among + English and American readers that a very large proportion of + early Christians before the creeds established and + regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely + that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel + against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as + Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived + for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held + by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the + Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The + catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the + circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely + on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew + God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, + when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only + the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. +</pre> + <p> + It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct for + restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet familiar + things, that these things of the True God should so readily liberate + cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to tend and + protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None the less, + right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God the Persecutor + and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent years that the + growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men a little ashamed + of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. The recent literature + of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this trouble. + </p> + <p> + Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying + the irascibility of his God and teaching “the Kaffirs of Natal” the + dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. “We cannot allow it to be said,” + the Dean of Cape Town insisted, “that God was not angry and was not + appeased by punishment.” He was angry “on account of Sin, which is a great + evil and a great insult to His Majesty.” The case of the Rev. Charles + Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the Church’s + insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to be found in + the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in the latest + edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it appears to have + been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the church would + prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey to-day. + </p> + <p> + 7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + </p> + <p> + Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of + miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed + parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and he + poisons all their lives. For many of us the word “God” first came into our + lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, as the + All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great convenience to + the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her charges and enforce + her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own aims. But indeed, the + teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul of a child scarcely less + dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason rebels and is crushed under + this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many minds never rise again from + their injury. They remain for the rest of life spiritually crippled and + debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a persuasion of relentless + cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + </p> + <p> + I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell were + the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed in him, + and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic monster, + perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting to condemn + and to “strike me dead”; his flames as ready as a grill-room fire. He was + over me and about my feebleness and silliness and forgetfulness as the sky + and sea would be about a child drowning in mid-Atlantic. When I was still + only a child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this + Lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God + himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to me + but the hideous scar in my heart where a fearful demon had been. + </p> + <p> + I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this + bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still + living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God + should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to + formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; they + dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, of + nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old watching + spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in their hearts, + echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, fear-driven. For + the true God has no lash of fear. And how the foul-minded bigot, with his + ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, gesticulating hands, his + bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this harvest of fear the + ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown for him! How he loves the + importance of denunciation, and, himself a malignant cripple, to rally the + company of these crippled souls to persecute and destroy the happy + children of God! . . . + </p> + <p> + Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real + wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and that + affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions of + instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak for me. + This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a debate in + the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the publications + of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: + </p> + <p> + “I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction + of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement + that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the proper + time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in the book. + Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and to these + children I find these statements addressed in the book: + </p> + <p> + “‘It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must + acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.’ + </p> + <p> + “I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there + were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not + mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that + it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to + its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the words, to + say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious question: + </p> + <p> + “‘Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to his + priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their sins. + It was to priests alone that Jesus said: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” . . + . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a terrible + sickness, and casts souls into hell.’ + </p> + <p> + “That is addressed to a child six years of age. + </p> + <p> + “‘I have known,’ the book continues, ‘poor children who concealed their + sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented with + remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly have gone + to the everlasting fires of hell.’” . . . + </p> + <p> + Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time + after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their + preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are + among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, + lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not of + many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known sacerdotalism + this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly power release + an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of suffering and a + hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any other sort of + men. + </p> + <p> + 8. THE CHILDREN’S GOD + </p> + <p> + Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for an + idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still + children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to + feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . + </p> + <p> + The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no appetite + for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for the attention + of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who dream of glory + in the nursery, who love to hear it said, “The children adore him.” If + children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and mutual forbearance, + they will be ready for the true God as their needs bring them within his + scope. They should be left to their innocence, and to their trust in the + innocence of the world, as long as they can be. They should be told only + of God as a Great Friend whom some day they will need more and understand + and know better. That is as much as most children need. The phrases of + religion put too early into their mouths may become a cant, something + worse than blasphemy. + </p> + <p> + Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in + their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not + follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological formulae + or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike or + misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a + distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may + begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain + bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, + through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our + children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his + limitless charity. . . . + </p> + <p> + With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and + that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + </p> + <p> + 9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + </p> + <p> + In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very considerable + disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of sexual thought and + feeling. But in the early days of religion the two things were inseparably + bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, for example, is + continually proclaiming the extraordinary “wrath” of their God at this or + that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The + ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of + the Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as + Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the old + associations. But to this day the representative Christian churches still + make marriage into a mystical sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the + Roman communion exacts the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, + regardless of the mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. + Nearly every Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as + it can contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat + illegitimate children as unfortunate children, but as children with a + mystical and an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may + resent this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, + but let them consult their orthodox authorities. + </p> + <p> + One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or + sinful in itself and what is held to be one’s duty or a nation’s duty + because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to do. + By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our + institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. But + my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but that it is + not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the professors of + the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not the conclusions + of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These sexual questions are + guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made—with + a sense of complete righteousness—to prohibit their discussion. That + fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis that + the Christian God remains a sex God in the minds of great numbers of his + exponents. His disentanglement from that plexus is incomplete. Sexual + things are still to the orthodox Christian, sacred things. + </p> + <p> + Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately + concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual + essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of + Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the most + petty and intimate of observances—many of which are now habitually + disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the + evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled our + conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual rules + that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ himself was + one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is the clearest + evidence in several instances of his disregard of the rule and his + insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit underlying and + often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser matter, has + followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further than it was + obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his principle that in + all these matters there is no need for superstitious fear, that the + interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the unembarrassed + intelligence of men. The church has followed him far enough to make the + harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics against what they are + pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, a profound inconsistency. + One seems to hear their distant protests when one reads of Christ and the + Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans and sinners. The clergy of + our own days play the part of the New Testament Pharisees with the utmost + exactness and complete unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern + ecclesiastic conversing with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, + unless she was in a very high social position indeed, or blending with + disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of condescension and much + explanatory by-play. Those who profess modern religion do but follow in + these matters a course entirely compatible with what has survived of the + authentic teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, + and that religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of + sexual things are a barbaric inheritance. + </p> + <p> + But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that + those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, + let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding + paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. We + would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and + observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more wholly + his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself + unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes + all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body + as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God’s service as he + can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such a consecrated + life. It is a matter between the individual and his conscience or his + doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may do or not do, what + he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. Nothing can exonerate + him from doing his utmost to determine and perform the right act. Nothing + can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here being insisted upon is + that none of these things has immediately to do with God or religious + emotion, except only the general will to do right in God’s service. The + detailed interpretation of that “right” is for the dispassionate + consideration of the human intelligence. + </p> + <p> + All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of the + emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most obstinately + recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always tending to leak + back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented priesthood of the + Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the extreme practices of the + Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike predecessors of Christianity, + there seems to be an extraordinary belief that chastity was not invented + until Christianity came, and that the religious life is largely the + propitiation of God by feats of sexual abstinence. But a superstitious + abstinence that scars and embitters the mind, distorts the imagination, + makes the body gross and keeps it unclean, is just as offensive to God as + any positive depravity. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE THIRD + </h2> + <h3> + THE LIKENESS OF GOD + </h3> + <p> + 1. GOD IS COURAGE + </p> + <p> + Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as the + chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside from + our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God is. + Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there is + always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I have not + called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + </p> + <p> + And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + </p> + <p> + 2. GOD IS A PERSON + </p> + <p> + And next GOD IS A PERSON. + </p> + <p> + Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are + very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of + their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, + who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; + who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless + and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against much + that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be loyal; he is + our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our lives. He feels + us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He hopes and attempts. + . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no Infinite. He is as real + as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + </p> + <p> + Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking about + the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show us this + person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, presently + they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself suddenly in + the net of those ancient controversies between species and individual, + between the one and the many, which arise out of the necessarily imperfect + methods of the human mind. Upon these matters there has been much pregnant + writing during the last half century. Such ideas as this writer has to + offer are to be found in a previous little book of his, “First and Last + Things,” in which, writing as one without authority or specialisation in + logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man vividly interested, for others in + a like case, he was at some pains to elucidate the imperfections of this + instrument of ours, this mind, by which we must seek and explain and reach + up to God. Suffice it here to say that theological discussion may very + easily become like the vision of a man with cataract, a mere projection of + inherent imperfections. If we do not use our phraseology with a certain + courage, and take that of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us + with a certain politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any + discussion in so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, + denials, and wranglings. And about this word “person” it is necessary to + be as clear and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a + definition of mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case + impossible. + </p> + <p> + Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a + man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; we + forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has + forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided + against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the contrary + we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him + continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only + abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the + idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word “person” there is + more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the + person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as opposed + to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the gods of + primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that quality of + person. They were thought of as living in very splendid bodies and as + acting consistently. If they were invisible in the ordinary world it was + because they were aloof or because their “persons” were too splendid for + weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated view of the person of the + Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who insisted upon seeing Zeus in + the glories that were sacred to Juno, was utterly consumed. The early + Islamic conception of God, like the conception of most honest, simple + Christians to-day, was clearly, in spite of the theologians, of a very + exalted anthropomorphic personality away somewhere in Heaven. The personal + appearance of the Christian God is described in The Revelation, and + however much that description may be explained away by commentators as + symbolical, it is certainly taken by most straightforward believers as a + statement of concrete reality. Now if we are going to insist upon this + primary meaning of person and individual, then certainly God as he is now + conceived is not a person and not an individual. The true God will never + promenade an Eden or a Heaven, nor sit upon a throne. + </p> + <p> + But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian + theological thought—that, for instance, which has found such + delicate and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of + Rabindranath Tagore—has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic + insistence upon a body. From the earliest ages man’s mind has found little + or no difficulty in the idea of something essential to the personality, a + soul or a spirit or both, existing apart from the body and continuing + after the destruction of the body, and being still a person and an + individual. From this it is a small step to the thought of a person + existing independently of any existing or pre-existing body. That is the + idea of theological Christianity, as distinguished from the Christianity + of simple faith. The Triune Persons—omnipresent, omniscient, and + omnipotent—exist for all time, superior to and independent of + matter. They are supremely disembodied. One became incarnate—as a + wind eddy might take up a whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern + religion conceive that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea of + spirituality, a disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the limits + of the conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that a person, + a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal body. . . . They + declare that God is without any specific body, that he is immaterial, that + he can affect the material universe—and that means that he can only + reach our sight, our hearing, our touch—through the bodies of those + who believe in him and serve him. + </p> + <p> + His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, in his + essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with space. He is + not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. Since the period when all + the great theologies that prevail to-day were developed, there have been + great changes in the ideas of men towards the dimensions of time and + space. We owe to Kant the release from the rule of these ideas as + essential ideas. Our modern psychology is alive to the possibility of + Being that has no extension in space at all, even as our speculative + geometry can entertain the possibility of dimensions—fourth, fifth, + Nth dimensions—outside the three-dimensional universe of our + experience. And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an + infinite remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere + immediately at hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere + immediately at hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of men. + He is in immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + </p> + <p> + But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter or + space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; that he + changes and becomes more even as a man’s purpose gathers itself together; + that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a beginning, an awakening, + and that as mankind grows he grows. With our eyes he looks out upon the + universe he invades; with our hands, he lays hands upon it. All our truth, + all our intentions and achievements, he gathers to himself. He is the + undying human memory, the increasing human will. + </p> + <p> + But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the + collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that this + is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who believe in the new + ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not an aggregate but a + synthesis. He is not merely the best of all of us, but a Being in himself, + composed of that but more than that, as a temple is more than a gathering + of stones, or a regiment is more than an accumulation of men. They point + out that a man is made up of a great multitude of cells, each equivalent + to a unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor is he simply + just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of them. You can + take away these and these and these, and he still remains. And he can + detach part of himself and treat it as if it were not himself, just as a + man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer the martyr did, thrust his hand + into the flames. A man is none the less himself because his hair is cut or + his appendix removed or his leg amputated. + </p> + <p> + And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that + spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the + tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But men + love England, which is made up of such things. + </p> + <p> + And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither body + nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to him, though + we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he sometimes uses. + And we may think of him as having moods and aspects—as a man has—and + a consistency we call his character. + </p> + <p> + These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey this + modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person whose will + and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands the religious life + seeks conversion by argument. First one must feel the need of God, then + one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God. That much is no more + than turning one’s face to the east to see the coming of the sun. One may + still doubt if that direction is the east or whether the sun will rise. + The real coming of God is not that. It is a change, an irradiation of the + mind. Everything is there as it was before, only now it is aflame. + Suddenly the light fills one’s eyes, and one knows that God has risen and + that doubt has fled for ever. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS YOUTH + </p> + <p> + The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + </p> + <p> + God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into the + future. + </p> + <p> + Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is in those + systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian attempt to represent + or symbolise God the Father which is not a bearded, aged man. White hair, + beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred such symptoms of senile decay are + there. These marks of senility do not astonish our modern minds in the + picture of God, only because tradition and usage have blinded our eyes to + the absurdity of a time-worn immortal. Jove too and Wotan are figures far + past the prime of their vigour. These are gods after the ancient habit of + the human mind, that turned perpetually backward for causes and reasons + and saw all things to come as no more than the working out of Fate,— + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + “Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe.” + </pre> + <p> + But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but our + future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure of a + beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his strength. + He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, eager to go + forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that was still but a + promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, discriminating weapon, his + eyes should be as bright as swords; his lips should fall apart with + eagerness for the great adventure before him, and he should be in very + fresh and golden harness, reflecting the rising sun. Death should still + hang like mists and cloud banks and shadows in the valleys of the wide + landscape about him. There should be dew upon the threads of gossamer and + little leaves and blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + </p> + <p> + 4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + </p> + <p> + One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most trite + and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that deserves + careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; there are people + who will say they love new potatoes; there are a multitude of loves of + different colours and values. There is the love of a mother for her child, + there is the love of brothers, there is the love of youth and maiden, and + the love of husband and wife, there is illicit love and the love one bears + one’s home or one’s country, there are dog-lovers and the loves of the + Olympians, and love which is a passion of jealousy. Love is frequently a + mere blend of appetite and preference; it may be almost pure greed; it may + have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit self-forgetful nor generous. It + is possible so to phrase things that the furtive craving of a man for + another man’s wife may be made out to be a light from God. Yet about all + the better sorts of love, the sorts of love that people will call “true + love,” there is something of that same exaltation out of the narrow self + that is the essential quality of the knowledge of God. + </p> + <p> + Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the + exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the windows by + which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is the open door by + which we freely go. And God never dies, nor disappoints, nor betrays. + </p> + <p> + The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its earlier + phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much possessiveness and + exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced trust, and far too great a + kindred with jealousy to be like the love of God. The former is a dramatic + relationship that drifts to a climax, and then again seeks presently a + climax, and that may be satiated or fatigued. But the latter is far more + like the love of comrades, or like the love of a man and a woman who have + loved and been through much trouble together, who have hurt one another + and forgiven, and come to a complete and generous fellowship. There is a + strange and beautiful love that men tell of that will spring up on + battlefields between sorely wounded men, and often they are men who have + fought together, so that they will do almost incredibly brave and tender + things for one another, though but recently they have been trying to kill + each other. There is often a pure exaltation of feeling between those who + stand side by side manfully in any great stress. These are the forms of + love that perhaps come nearest to what we mean when we speak of the love + of God. + </p> + <p> + That is man’s love of God, but there is also something else; there is the + love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this is not an + indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love of a woman for + her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; God must love his + followers as a great captain loves his men, who are so foolish, so + helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet whose faith alone makes him + possible. It is an austere love. The spirit of God will not hesitate to + send us to torment and bodily death. . . . + </p> + <p> + And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach him. He + has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to make himself + known to us. When at last the individual breaks through the limiting + darknesses to him, the irradiation of that moment, the smile and soul + clasp, is in God as well as in man. He has won us from his enemy. We come + staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, to fight for his + kingdom henceforth, until at last we are altogether taken up into his + being. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FOURTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + </p> + <p> + It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to drape + about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, the honest + Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth bare, is + constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. It will be + interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme instability of + absolute negation. + </p> + <p> + Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who was a + very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the other day. He + was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man almost of the rank and + quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A decade or more ago he wrote a book + called “The Nature of Man,” in which he set out very plainly a number of + illuminating facts about life. They are facts so illuminating that + presently, in our discussion of sin, they will be referred to again. But + it is not Professor Metchnikoff’s intention to provide material for a + religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to overthrow theology + as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his book, the thing upon + which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no inkling of the fact + that he has no longer the right to conceive theology as he conceives it. + The development of his science has destroyed that right. + </p> + <p> + He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our ideas + of individuality and species, and how the import of theology is modified + through these changes. When he comes from his own world of modern biology + to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. He attacks religion as he + understood it when first he fell out with it fifty years or more ago. + </p> + <p> + Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes that + biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the general scheme + and method of our thinking. + </p> + <p> + The influence of biology upon thought in general consists essentially in + diminishing the importance of the individual and developing the + realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of super-individual, a + modifying and immortal super-individual, maintaining itself against the + outer universe by the birth and death of its constituent individuals. + Natural History, which began by putting individuals into species as if the + latter were mere classificatory divisions, has come to see that the + species has its adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding in + interest and importance the individual adventure. “The Origin of Species” + was for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + </p> + <p> + The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be stated + plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we current + individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us distributed between two + parents, then between four grandparents, and so on backward, we are + temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an ancestral diffusion; we stand + our trial, and presently our individuality is dispersed and mixed again + with other individualities in an uncertain multitude of descendants. But + the species is not like this; it goes on steadily from newness to newness, + remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual life is a mere + episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing adventure of the + species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of life and the + distresses of life in the fact that the species is still very painfully + adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under which it lives. The + conflict of life is a continual pursuit of adjustment, and the “ills of + life,” of the individual life that is, are due to its “disharmonies.” Man, + acutely aware of himself as an individual adventure and unawakened to + himself as a species, finds life jangling and distressful, finds death + frustration. He fails and falls as a person in what may be the success and + triumph of his kind. He does not apprehend the struggle or the nature of + victory, but only his own gravitation to death and personal extinction. + </p> + <p> + Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti-religious + because to him as to so many Europeans religion is confused with + priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with disagreeable early impressions + of irrational repression and misguidance. How completely he misconceives + the quality of religion, how completely he sees it as an individual’s + affair, his own words may witness: + </p> + <p> + “Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions which + as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future life + has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life after + death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On the + other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy + humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought of + the inevitability of death.” + </p> + <p> + Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, and by a + future life the prolongation of individuality. But Buddhism does not in + truth appear ever to have been concerned with that, and modern religious + developments are certainly not under that preoccupation with the narrower + self. Buddhism indeed so far from “preaching resignation” to death, seeks + as its greater good a death so complete as to be absolute release from the + individual’s burthen of KARMA. Buddhism seeks an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL + IMMORTALITY. The deeper one pursues religious thought the more nearly it + approximates to a search for escape from the self-centred life and + over-individuation, and the more it diverges from Professor Metchnikoff’s + assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to lose one’s self. But + Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied that this is so, is then left + free to take the very essentials of the religious life as they are here + conceived and present them as if they were the antithesis of the religious + life. His book, when it is analysed, resolves itself into just that + research for an escape from the painful accidents and chagrins of + individuation, which is the ultimate of religion. + </p> + <p> + At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true solution + round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his most hopeful + satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such a scientific + prolongation of life that the instinct for self-preservation will be at + last extinct. If that is not the very “resignation” he imputes to the + Buddhist I do not know what it is. He believes that an individual which + has lived fully and completely may at last welcome death with the same + instinctive readiness as, in the days of its strength, it shows for the + embraces of its mate. We are to be glutted by living to six score and ten. + We are to rise from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We shall + go to death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men are to have + a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their prime, and + their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a period of + ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and twenty or + thereabouts) and public service! + </p> + <p> + (But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the simple + pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? Metchnikoff never faces + that question. And again, what of the man who is challenged to die for + right at the age of thirty? What does the prolongation of life do for him? + And where are the consolations for accidental misfortune, for the + tormenting disease or the lost limb?) + </p> + <p> + But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure religiosity. + The prolongation of life gives place to sheer self-sacrifice as the + fundamental “remedy.” And indeed what other remedy has ever been conceived + for the general evil of life? + </p> + <p> + “On the other hand,” he writes, “the knowledge that the goal of human life + can be attained only by the development of a high degree of solidarity + amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that the enjoyment + of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes ix. 7-10)* is + opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and the evil that + comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able to redress the + disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly to the + improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine + with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let + thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no + ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all + the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee + under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy + portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest + under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it + with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor + knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. +</pre> + <p> + “In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted + continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has produced + a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In the problem of + his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of nature; he must + direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able to modify the + nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify his own + constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . . + </p> + <p> + “To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame + the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of + science. + </p> + <p> + “If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion + of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And if + it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith + alone, the faith must be in the power of science.” + </p> + <p> + Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of + “religion” and “philosophy” as remedies for human ills, is nothing less + than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into + terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really + over-individuation and that salvation is escape from self into the larger + being of life. . . . + </p> + <p> + What can this “religion of the future” be but that devotion to the racial + adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already found, like + gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed away the confusions + and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an inquiry setting out from a + purely religious starting-point we have already reached conclusions + identical with this ultimate refuge of an extreme materialist. + </p> + <p> + This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our God—an + altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + </p> + <p> + 2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + </p> + <p> + Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness and + generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were the + statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a religious writer + would say—except that God is not named. Religious metaphors abound. + It is as if they accepted the living body of religion but denied the bones + that held it together—as they might deny the bones of a friend. It + is true, they would admit, the body moves in a way that implies bones in + its every movement, but—WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE BONES. + </p> + <p> + The disputes in theory—I do not say the difference in reality—between + the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic—becomes at times + almost as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to students of + physics, whether the scientific “ether” is real or a formula. Every + material phenomenon is consonant with and helps to define this ether, + which permeates and sustains and is all things, which nevertheless is + perceptible to no sense, which is reached only by an intellectual process. + Most minds are disposed to treat this ether as a reality. But the acutely + critical mind insists that what is only so attainable by inference is not + real; it is no more than “a formula that satisfies all phenomena.” + </p> + <p> + But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that + satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + </p> + <p> + Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to + believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, + from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and + spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as yet + felt only unassigned impulses. One says God’s will is so; the other that + Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other the Good + Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, moves me to + do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference and escapes a + risk of self-righteousness. + </p> + <p> + I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called “The + Tyranny of Shams,” in which he displays very typically this curious + tendency to a sort of religion with God “blacked out.” His is an extremely + interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman Catholic priest, + and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a resolution even sterner + than Professor Metchnikoff’s, to deny that anything religious or divine + can exist, that there can be any aim in life except happiness, or any + guide but “science.” But—and here immediately he turns east again—he + is careful not to say “individual happiness.” And he says “Pleasure is, as + Epicureans insisted, only a part of a large ideal of happiness.” So he + lets the happiness of devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens + indefinite possibilities of getting away from any merely materialistic + rule of life. And he writes: + </p> + <p> + “In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and + indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness. Why, + they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a thing as a duty to + improve the earth? What is the meaning or purpose of life? Or has it a + purpose? + </p> + <p> + “One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of + controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People tell you + that the conflict of science and religion—it would be better to say, + the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions—has robbed + life of its plain significance. The men who, like Tolstoi, seriously urge + this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life. Certainly modern + culture—science, history, philosophy, and art—finds no purpose + in life: that is to say, no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered + by man. A great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine ‘a + series of lucky accidents’—the chance blowing by the wind of certain + chemicals into pools on the primitive earth—accounting for the first + appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the influences which + have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as a + similar series of lucky accidents. + </p> + <p> + “But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there is + no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development of + humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose and set + up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will teach us that + this choice must be social, not merely individual. In whatever measure + ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal impulses or attractions, + the aim of the race must be a collective aim. I do not mean an austere + demand of self-sacrifice from the individual, but an adjustment—as + genial and generous as possible—of individual variations for common + good. Otherwise life becomes discordant and futile, and the pain and waste + react on each individual. So we raise again, in the twentieth century, the + old question of ‘the greatest good,’ which men discussed in the Stoa + Poikile and the suburban groves of Athens, in the cool atria of patrician + mansions on the Palatine and the Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and + the schools which Omar Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of + the Middle Ages and the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring + happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above all + the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, which + have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that height—just + as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on no metaphysic, no + sacred legend, no disputable tradition—nothing that scepticism can + corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations are the + fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature.” + </p> + <p> + And again: + </p> + <p> + “The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time is + an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of that + larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general social + organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. It finds a + sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the finer + sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines it is + the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of the claims + of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, for these are + elemental principles of social life; but it appeals more confidently to + the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered children of the race, + and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction of suffering and the + creation of happiness. The advance guard of the race, the men and women in + whom mental alertness is associated with fine feeling, cry that they have + reached Pisgah’s slope and in increasing numbers men and women are + pressing on to see if it be really the Promised Land.” + </p> + <p> + “Pisgah—the Promised Land!” Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if + he were half-way to “Oh! Beulah Land!” and the tambourine. + </p> + <p> + That “larger spirit,” we maintain, is God; those “impulses” are the power + of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to realise + fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic Church, + and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured back to that + altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that preoccupation, and + immediately he will begin to realise the presence of Divinity. + </p> + <p> + 3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + </p> + <p> + It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves + to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that if their + conception of right living falls in so completely with the conception of + God’s service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God, like the ether + of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no more than an + imaginative externalisation of man’s inherent good will. Why trouble about + God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition a sufficient + evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such benevolent + unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those who have + found God? + </p> + <p> + The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone upon his + own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting to his + own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral strength. A certain + immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs like a precipice above him; + incalculable temptations open like gulfs beneath his feet. He has not + really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to whom he + can give himself. He is still a masterless man. His exaltation is + self-centred, is priggishness, his fall is unrestrained by any exterior + obligation. His devotion is only the good will in himself, a disposition; + it is a mood that may change. At any moment it may change. He may have + pledged himself to his own pride and honour, but who will hold him to his + bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own amiable sentiments, + his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and no one watches while + he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. He has no real and living + link with other men of good will. + </p> + <p> + And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely intellectual are + in no better case than those who deny God altogether. They may have all + the forms of truth and not divinity. The religion of the atheist with a + God-shaped blank at its heart and the persuasion of the unconverted + theologian, are both like lamps unlit. The lit lamp has no difference in + form from the lamp unlit. But the lit lamp is alive and the lamp unlit is + asleep or dead. + </p> + <p> + The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the servant + of the true God is this; it is that the latter has experienced a complete + turning away from self. This only difference is all the difference in the + world. It is the realisation that this goodness that I thought was within + me and of myself and upon which I rather prided myself, is without me and + above myself, and infinitely greater and stronger than I. It is the + immortal and I am mortal. It is invincible and steadfast in its purpose, + and I am weak and insecure. It is no longer that I, out of my inherent and + remarkable goodness, out of the excellence of my quality and the + benevolence of my heart, give a considerable amount of time and attention + to the happiness and welfare of others—because I choose to do so. On + the contrary I have come under a divine imperative, I am obeying an + irresistible call, I am a humble and willing servant of the righteousness + of God. That altruism which Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would + have us regard as the goal and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is + really the first simple commandment in the religious life. + </p> + <p> + 4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + </p> + <p> + Now here is a passage from a book, “Evolution and the War,” by Professor + Metchnikoff’s translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which comes even closer + to our conception of God as an immortal being arising out of man, and + external to the individual man. He has been discussing that well-known + passage of Kant’s: “Two things fill my mind with ever-renewed wonder and + awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them—the starry vault above + me, and the moral law within me.” + </p> + <p> + From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this most + definite and interesting statement: + </p> + <p> + “Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel + and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who dislikes + all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the + implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain + as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that + the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It + has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the + work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not in man, + inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his customs, in + his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance are the + crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in a high + place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall, but + the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations must be + measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the debasement + or perfection of man’s great achievement.” + </p> + <p> + This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that this book + asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we call Him “Man’s + Great Achievement” or “The Son of Man” or the “God of Mankind” or “God.” + So far as the practical and moral ends of life are concerned, it does not + matter how we explain or refuse to explain His presence in our lives. + </p> + <p> + There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. Chalmers + Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is asserted that + GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of self-suppression to + our weakness. + </p> + <p> + 5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + </p> + <p> + Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture upon + Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same + characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of + denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute + Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the possibility + of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite Being from the + idea of God. It is another striking instance of that obsession of modern + minds by merely Christian theology of which I have already complained. + Professor Murray has quoted Mr. Bevan’s phrase for God, “the Friend behind + phenomena,” and he does not seem to realise that that phrase carries with + it no obligation whatever to believe that this Friend is in control of the + phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to be in control as if it were a + matter of course: + </p> + <p> + “We do seem to find,” Professor Murray writes, “not only in all religions, + but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man is not quite + alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours towards the good by + some external help or sympathy. We find it everywhere in the + unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded self-revelations of the + most severe and conscientious Atheists. Now, the Stoics, like many other + schools of thought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. + It was not an absolute proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, + but it was a strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive + belief in the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must be + a good cause for that belief. + </p> + <p> + “This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But it does + not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the content of the + belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those + points on which Stoicism, in company with almost all philosophy up to the + present time, has gone astray through not sufficiently realising its + dependence on the human mind as a natural biological product. For it is + very important in this matter to realise that the so-called belief is not + really an intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole nature. + </p> + <p> + “It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise + the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally + unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from + the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see + philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the + Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a + moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it seems + to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old + ineradicable instinct. We are gregarious animals; our ancestors have been + such for countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world as + gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. + Students of animals under domestication have shown us how the habits of a + gregarious creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in a thousand + details by reference to the lost pack which is no longer there—the + pack which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time he is out + walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. It is a + strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the gregarious animal + for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may be, it may very + possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind phenomena our own + yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive conviction, since + they are certainly not founded on either reason or observation, are in + origin the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious animal to find its herd + or its herd-leader in the great spaces between the stars. + </p> + <p> + “At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of.” + </p> + <p> + There the passage and the lecture end. + </p> + <p> + I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the reality of + God. + </p> + <p> + Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed + solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, “atheists” + so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one’s own was not + the universal disposition of living things. His classical training + disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual difference. But + nearly every animal, and certainly every mentally considerable animal, + begins under parental care, in a nest or a litter, mates to breed, and is + associated for much of its life. Even the great carnivores do not go alone + except when they are old and have done with the most of life. Every pack, + every herd, begins at some point in a couple, it is the equivalent of the + tiger’s litter if that were to remain undispersed. And it is within the + memory of men still living that in many districts the African lion has + with a change of game and conditions lapsed from a “solitary” to a + gregarious, that is to say a prolonged family habit of life. + </p> + <p> + Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher apes, is + an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has passed within the + historical period from a tribal gregariousness to a nearly cosmopolitan + tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. He is not, as Professor Murray + seems to suggest, a solitary LOST gregarious beast. Why should his desire + for God be regarded as the overflow of an unsatisfied gregarious instinct, + when he has home, town, society, companionship, trade union, state, + INCREASINGLY at hand to glut it? Why should gregariousness drive a man to + God rather than to the third-class carriage and the public-house? Why + should gregariousness drive men out of crowded Egyptian cities into the + cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer in a memorable passage (about the + hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is flatly opposed to Professor Murray, + and seems far more plausible when he declares that the nature of man is + insufficiently gregarious. The parallel with the dog is not a valid one. + </p> + <p> + Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the Friend + that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not the real + deception, our belief that we are completely individualised, and is it not + possible that this that Professor Murray calls “instinct” is really not a + vestige but a new thing arising out of our increasing understanding, an + intellectual penetration to that greater being of the species, that vine, + of which we are the branches? Why should not the soul of the species, many + faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like our own? + </p> + <p> + Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other cases of + atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate understanding of + individuation bars the way to at least the intellectual recognition of the + true God. + </p> + <p> + 6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + </p> + <p> + And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent + interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston’s. You will note that while + in this book we use the word “God” to indicate the God of the Heart, Sir + Harry uses “God” for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, which we have + spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word “God” is of late + theological origin; the original identity of the words “good” and “god” + and all the stories of the gods are against him. But Sir Harry takes up + God only to define him away into incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + </p> + <p> + “We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, + assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating + this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of + planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. We + are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is intended + to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out of incompleteness + and misery; and we are entitled to identify the reactionary forces of + brute Nature with the anthropomorphic Devil of primitive religions, the + power of darkness resisting the power of light. But in these conjectures + we must surely come to the conclusion that the theoretical potency we call + ‘God’ makes endless experiments, and scrap-heaps the failures. Think of + the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of creative energy that went to their + differentiation and their well-nigh incredible physical development. . . . + </p> + <p> + “To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and + perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may seem + little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the cutting, + the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as little + remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the Creative + Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA MEMBRA of + perfected life on this planet. . . .” + </p> + <p> + But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God of man + as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of + humanitarianism. Sir Harry’s ideas are much less thoroughly thought out + than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On that + account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ were + simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of ethics—and + yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though religions were + nothing more than ethical movements, and as though Christianity were + merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness that everything was + simply horrid, and so, “Let us instal loving kindness as a cardinal + axiom.” He ignores altogether the fundamental essential of religion, which + is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES + OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE + WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. He presents a conception of religion + relieved of its “nonsense” as the cheerful self-determination of a number + of bright little individuals (much stirred but by no means overcome by + Cosmic Pity) to the Service of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as + outward a thing, it goes as little into the intimacy of their lives, as + though they had after proper consideration agreed to send a subscription + to a Red Cross Ambulance or take part in a public demonstration against + the Armenian Massacres, or do any other rather nice-spirited exterior + thing. This is what he says: + </p> + <p> + “I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the + Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian ideal + and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and disputable, + and ‘mattering not neither here nor there,’ of Christian theology—a + theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of Christ—and all + of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made immortal in their + application by unassailable truth and by the confirmation of science. An + excellent remedy for the nonsense which still clings about religion may be + found in two books: Cotter Monson’s ‘Service of Man,’ which was published + as long ago as 1887, and has since been re-issued by the Rationalist Press + Association in its well-known sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton’s + ‘Man and the Bible.’ Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of + the relations between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade’s + ‘Martyrdom of Man.’” + </p> + <p> + Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a + well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength in + his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the “Service of Man” is no + better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the + undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE FIFTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE INVISIBLE KING + </h3> + <p> + 1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + </p> + <p> + The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince growing + in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his service and who + gives salvation from self and mortality only through self-abandonment to + his service, necessarily involves a demand for a complete revision and + fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + </p> + <p> + God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and confusions + and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a dark jungle to a + great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a sword. It is plain that + he can admit no divided control of the world he claims. He concedes + nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy there are no human things that are + God’s and others that are Caesar’s. Those of the new thought cannot render + unto God the things that are God’s, and to Caesar the things that are + Caesar’s. Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men’s lives and direct + their destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king nor + Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except he claim + as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his claim. The + steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place for the + sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims “divine right” plays with the + lightning. + </p> + <p> + The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or + democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make plain + the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the discovery and + service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts of men, and the + performance of that will, not only in the private life of the believer but + in the acts and order of the state and nation of which he is a part. I + give myself to God not only because I am so and so but because I am + mankind. I become in a measure responsible for every evil in the world of + men. I become a knight in God’s service. I become my brother’s keeper. I + become a responsible minister of my King. I take sides against injustice, + disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, princes, + landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God’s rule and + worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the + world’s affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow-servants + of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast antagonism. + </p> + <p> + 2. THE WILL OF GOD + </p> + <p> + It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem most + arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will relate of a + close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, the aims of his + kingship. And just as they advance no proof whatever of the existence of + God but their realisation of him, so with regard to these qualities and + dispositions they have little argument but profound conviction. What they + say is this; that if you do not feel God then there is no persuading you + of him; we cannot win over the incredulous. And what they say of his + qualities is this; that if you feel God then you will know, you will + realise more and more clearly, that thus and thus and no other is his + method and intention. + </p> + <p> + It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full implications + of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it asserted that the first + purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of knowledge as a + means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to power. For that he + must use human eyes and hands and brains. + </p> + <p> + And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only beginning to + apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as time goes on. But it + is possible to define the broad outlines of the attainment he seeks. It is + the conquest of death. + </p> + <p> + It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the + individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an undying + purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to threaten our + species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. God fights against + death in every form, against the great death of the race, against the + petty death of indolence, insufficiency, baseness, misconception, and + perversion. He it is and no other who can deliver us “from the body of + this death.” This is the battle that grows plainer; this is the purpose to + which he calls us out of the animal’s round of eating, drinking, lusting, + quarrelling and laughing and weeping, fearing and failing, and presently + of wearying and dying, which is the whole life that living without God can + give us. And from these great propositions there follow many very definite + maxims and rules of life for those who serve God. These we will + immediately consider. + </p> + <p> + 3. THE CRUCIFIX + </p> + <p> + But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind of + intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and the vaguer + sort of Christianity. There are a number of people closely in touch with + those who have found the new religion who, biased probably by a dread of + too complete a break with Christianity, have adopted a theogony which is + very reminiscent of Gnosticism and of the Paulician, Catharist, and + kindred sects to which allusion has already been made. He, who is called + in this book God, they would call God-the-Son or Christ, or the Logos; and + what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled Being, they would call + God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as Life, they would call, with a + certain disregard of the poor brutes that perish, Man. And they would + assert, what we of the new belief, pleading our profound ignorance, would + neither assert nor deny, that that Darkness, out of which came Life and + God, since it produced them must be ultimately sympathetic and of like + nature with them. And that ultimately Man, being redeemed and led by + Christ and saved from death by him, would be reconciled with God the + Father.* And this great adventurer out of the hearts of man that we here + call God, they would present as the same with that teacher from Galilee + who was crucified at Jerusalem. + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for + him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and + chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the + blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is + an escape from the “inadequate" ideas of the mortal human + personality to the “adequate” and timeless ideas of God. +</pre> + <p> + Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon this + apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. Firstly, + we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the veiled being nor + about that being’s relations to God and to Life. We do not recognise any + consistent sympathetic possibilities between these outer beings and our + God. Our God is, we feel, like Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And + the accepted figure of Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in the + tone of our worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, but + by fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the thing + that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he cannot + escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross or chained to + be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary sufferings, like + hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in themselves bring victory. + They may be necessary, but they are not glorious. The symbol of the + crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched figure of Christ, the sorrowful + cry to his Father, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” these + things jar with our spirit. We little men may well fail and repent, but it + is our faith that our God does not fail us nor himself. We cannot accept + the Christian’s crucifix, or pray to a pitiful God. We cannot accept the + Resurrection as though it were an after-thought to a bitterly felt death. + Our crucifix, if you must have a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a + foot already torn away from its nail, and with eyes not downcast but + resolute against the sky; a face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in + the surpassing glory of the struggle and the inflexible will to live and + prevail. . . . + </p> + <p> + But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible the + wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is courage + beyond any conceivable suffering. + </p> + <p> + But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns the + figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the figure of God, + and the crucifix only so far as that stands for divine action. The figure + of Christ crucified, so soon as we think of it as being no more than the + tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man who proclaimed the loving-kindness of + God and the supremacy of God’s kingdom over the individual life, and who, + in the extreme agony of his pain and exhaustion, cried out that he was + deserted, becomes something altogether distinct from a theological symbol. + Immediately that we cease to worship, we can begin to love and pity. Here + was a being of extreme gentleness and delicacy and of great courage, of + the utmost tolerance and the subtlest sympathy, a saint of non-resistance. + . . . + </p> + <p> + We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We are the + militant followers of and participators in a militant God. We can + appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle being upon + whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is the remotest + quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is the completest + inversion of his likeness as we know him. A Christianity which shows, for + its daily symbol, Christ risen and trampling victoriously upon a broken + cross, would be far more in the spirit of our worship.* + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + * It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a + letter written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that + pertinacious correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, + almost exactly the same sentiments I have here expressed. + “If I could fill the Crucifix with life as you do,” he says, + “I would gladly look on it, but the fallen Head and the + closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of glorified + humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who ‘hath + been crucified,’ who hath passed the trial victoriously and + borne the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this + side of the glory.” + </pre> + <p> + I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit in a + tract, “The Call of the Kingdom,” by that very able and subtle, Anglican + theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the vitalising + stresses of the war we are winning “faith in Christ as an heroic leader. + We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle that there is no ground + in our picture of Him, for the vision which His disciple had of Him: ‘His + head and His hair were white, as white wool, white as snow; and His eyes + were as a flame of fire: and His feet like unto burnished brass, as if it + had been refined in a furnace; and His voice was as the voice of many + waters. And He had in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth + proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun + shineth in its strength.’” + </p> + <p> + These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how clearly + parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + </p> + <p> + Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite + intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth + and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to our + inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the + chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we who + have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be + equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share with + him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and + clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, and + every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in ourselves + but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment of his real + and visible kingdom throughout the world. + </p> + <p> + And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not + merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but that + the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric of the + world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the village + school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market town, in the + mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman’s house. It means that + ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor is to disfigure our + coins and stamps any more; God himself and no delegate is to be + represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters and our receipts, a + perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no act altogether + without significance, no power so humble that it may not be used for or + against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To realise God in one’s + heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, and the way of his + service is neither to pull up one’s life by the roots nor to continue it + in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it about, to turn everything + that there is in it round into his way. + </p> + <p> + The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the + abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves, + but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt to be + utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to keep oneself fit + and bright for God’s service, and to increase one’s knowledge and powers, + and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one’s baser motives, a watch + against fear and indolence, against vanity, against greed and lust, + against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To have found God truly does + in itself make God’s service one’s essential motive, but these evils lurk + in the shadows, in the lassitudes and unwary moments. No one escapes them + altogether, there is no need for tragic moods on account of imperfections. + We can no more serve God without blunders and set-backs than we can win + battles without losing men. But the less of such loss the better. The + servant of God must keep his mind as wide and sound and his motives as + clean as he can, just as an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and + muscles as fit and his hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously + evade exercise and regular washing—of mind as of hands. An incessant + watchfulness of one’s self and one’s thoughts and the soundness of one’s + thoughts; cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and + prejudice, careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; + these are the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to + God will, as a matter of course, set before himself. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + </p> + <p> + Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will be more + convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present pursue the idea + of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment he calls us. This + kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all mankind upon + certain divine ends. These, we conceive, are first, the maintenance of the + racial life; secondly, the exploration of the external being of nature as + it is and as it has been, that is to say history and science; thirdly, + that exploration of inherent human possibility which is art; fourthly, + that clarification of thought and knowledge which is philosophy; and + finally, the progressive enlargement and development of the racial life + under these lights, so that God may work through a continually better body + of humanity and through better and better equipped minds, that he and our + race may increase for ever, working unendingly upon the development of the + powers of life and the mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout + the deeps of space. He sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer + ourselves and our world and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can + as yet see nothing, our imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of + our understanding is the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from + us. . . . + </p> + <p> + It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality that + the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden. . . . + </p> + <p> + But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of this + earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives must fall + and our consciences adapt themselves. + </p> + <p> + Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost necessarily a + conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. Each believer as he + grasps this natural and immediate consequence of the faith that has come + into his life will form at the same time a Utopian conception of this + world changed in the direction of God’s purpose. The vision will follow + the realisation of God’s true nature and purpose as a necessary second + step. And he will begin to develop the latent citizen of this world-state + in himself. He will fall in with the idea of the world-wide sanities of + this new order being drawn over the warring outlines of the present, and + of men falling out of relationship with the old order and into + relationship with the new. Many men and women are already working to-day + at tasks that belong essentially to God’s kingdom, tasks that would be of + the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; for example, + they are doing or sustaining scientific research or education or creative + art; they are making roads to bring men together, they are doctors working + for the world’s health, they are building homes, they are constructing + machinery to save and increase the powers of men. . . . + </p> + <p> + Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will + change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a little + while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come in chiefly + from the west, to become open and confessed servants of God. This work + that they were doing for ambition, or the love of men or the love of + knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to the work itself, or for + money or honour or country or king, they will realise they are doing for + God and by the power of God. Self-transformation into a citizen of God’s + kingdom and a new realisation of all earthly politics as no more than the + struggle to define and achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, follow on, + without any need for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the moment when God + and the believer meet and clasp one another. + </p> + <p> + This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely + fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such general + theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. But to anyone + who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a little from the + obsession of existing but transitory things, it ceases to be a mere + suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly the real future of + mankind. From the phase of “so things should be,” the mind will pass very + rapidly to the realisation that “so things will be.” Towards this the + directive wills among men have been drifting more and more steadily and + perceptibly and with fewer eddyings and retardations, for many centuries. + The purpose of mankind will not be always thus confused and fragmentary. + This dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the warring tribes + and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries or so ago, draws + to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a metaphor, not a mere + spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain project; it is the thing + before us, it is the close and inevitable destiny of mankind. + </p> + <p> + In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading about the + world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears here and there + to-day, like that little twittering of birds which comes before the dawn, + will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In but a few centuries the whole + world will be openly, confessedly, preparing for the kingdom. In but a few + centuries God will have led us out of the dark forest of these present + wars and confusions into the open brotherhood of his rule. + </p> + <p> + 6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + </p> + <p> + This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation at + thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, partisan, + nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into the coherent + development of the world kingdom of God, provides the form into which + everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will naturally seek to fit his + every thought and activity. The material greeds, the avarice, fear, + rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a disordered world will be challenged + and examined under one general question: “What am I in the kingdom of + God?” + </p> + <p> + It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing number of + occupations that belong already to God’s kingdom, research, teaching, + creative art, creative administration, cultivation, construction, + maintenance, and the honest satisfaction of honest practical human needs. + For such people conversion to the intimacy of God means at most a change + in the spirit of their work, a refreshed energy, a clearer understanding, + a new zeal, a completer disregard of gains and praises and promotion. Pay, + honours, and the like cease to be the inducement of effort. Service, and + service alone, is the criterion that the quickened conscience will + recognise. + </p> + <p> + Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which service is + mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service is a little + warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by mercenary and + commercial considerations, by some inherent or special degradation of + purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer rest until his life + is readjusted and as far as possible freed from the waste of these base + diversions. For example a scientific investigator, lit and inspired by + great inquiries, may be hampered by the conditions of his professorship or + research fellowship, which exact an appearance of “practical” results. Or + he may be obliged to lecture or conduct classes. He may be able to give + but half his possible gift to the work of his real aptitude, and that at a + sacrifice of money and reputation among short-sighted but influential + contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature an investigator he will know that + the research is what God needs of him. He cannot continue it at all if he + leaves his position, and so he must needs waste something of his gift to + save the rest. But should a poorer or a humbler post offer him better + opportunity, there lies his work for God. There one has a very common and + simple type of the problems that will arise in the lives of men when they + are lit by sudden realisation of the immediacy of God. + </p> + <p> + Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician between + the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one hand, and the + lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy people on the other. + He belongs to a profession that is crippled by a mediaeval code, a + profession which was blind to the common interest of the Public Health and + regarded its members merely as skilled practitioners employed to “cure” + individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of the + profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of devoted + men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as a whole, + broadening out from the frowsy den of the “leech,” with its crocodile and + bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and illuminating + co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing and economic + life of the community. + </p> + <p> + And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble of + the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and his + divine impulse on the other. + </p> + <p> + The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every decision + that must be made by men and women in these more or less vitiated, but + still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + </p> + <p> + The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a man + who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business enterprise or + the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need of manufactures and + that goods should be distributed; land must be administered and new + economic possibilities developed. The drift of things is in the direction + of state ownership and control, but in a great number of cases the state + is not ripe for such undertakings, it commands neither sufficient + integrity nor sufficient ability, and the proprietor of factory, store, + credit or land, must continue in possession, holding as a trustee for God + and, so far as lies in his power, preparing for his supersession by some + more public administration. Modern religion admits of no facile flights + from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort to the wilderness and + sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts among scorpions in a cave + as no better than a deserter in hiding. It unhesitatingly forbids any rich + young man to sell all that he has and give to the poor. Himself and all + that he has must be alike dedicated to God. + </p> + <p> + The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and of + every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes aware of + God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the maximum of + possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the least private + profit. He may set aside a salary for his maintenance; the rest he must + deal with like a zealous public official. And if he perceives that the + affair could be better administered by other hands than his own, then it + is his business to get it into those hands with the smallest delay and the + least profit to himself. . . . + </p> + <p> + The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right and + wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has a RIGHT to + his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man is not justified in + drawing the profits from an advantageous agreement nor free to spend the + profits of a speculation as he will. God takes no heed of savings nor of + abstinence. He recognises no right to the “rewards of abstinence,” no + right to any rewards. Those profits and comforts and consolations are the + inducements that dangle before the eyes of the spiritually blind. Wealth + is an embarrassment to the religious, for God calls them to account for + it. The servant of God has no business with wealth or power except to use + them immediately in the service of God. Finding these things in his hands + he is bound to administer them in the service of God. + </p> + <p> + The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged communism of + the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the scribes and + Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and bones and house and + acres, he takes skill and influence and expectations. For all the rest of + your life you are nothing but God’s agent. If you are not prepared for so + complete a surrender, then you are infinitely remote from God. You must go + your way. Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps you have been + desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as a possession. You have + not begun to understand. This that we are discussing in this book is as + yet nothing for you. + </p> + <p> + 7. ADJUSTING LIFE + </p> + <p> + This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this present + world and the discovery and realisation of one’s own place and work in and + for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase in the development of + the believer. He will set about revising and adjusting his scheme of life, + his ways of living, his habits and his relationships in the light of his + new convictions. + </p> + <p> + Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain + righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap only + in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind that have + brought them to God will already have brought their lives into a certain + rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there will be someone + to whom the self-examination that follows conversion will reveal an + entirely wrong and evil way of living. It may be that the light has come + to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable routine. Or to + someone following some highly profitable and amusing, but socially useless + or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an advocate at the disposal + of any man’s purpose, or an actor or actress ready to fall in with any + theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may find herself a prostitute or a pet + wife, a mere kept instrument of indulgence. These are lives of prey, these + are lives of futility; the light of God will not tolerate such lives. Here + religion can bring nothing but a severance from the old way of life + altogether, a break and a struggle towards use and service and dignity. + </p> + <p> + But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong the + new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the old. Every + sort of experience that has ever come to a human being is in the self that + he brings to God, and there is no reason why a knowledge of evil ways + should not determine the path of duty. No one can better devise + protections against vices than those who have practised them; none know + temptations better than those who have fallen. If a man has followed an + evil trade, it becomes him to use his knowledge of the tricks of that + trade to help end it. He knows the charities it may claim and the remedies + it needs. . . . + </p> + <p> + A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of + adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under + contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the opportunity + for examining the relation of an ordinary self-respecting worldly life, to + life under the dispensation of God discovered. A barrister is usually a + man of some energy and ambition, his honour is moulded by the traditions + of an ancient and antiquated profession, instinctively self-preserving and + yet with a real desire for consistency and respect. As a profession it has + been greedy and defensively conservative, but it has never been shameless + nor has it ever broken faith with its own large and selfish, but quite + definite, propositions. It has never for instance had the shamelessness of + such a traditionless and undisciplined class as the early factory + organisers. It has never had the dull incoherent wickedness of the sort of + men who exploit drunkenness and the turf. It offends within limits. + Barristers can be, and are, disbarred. But it is now a profession + extraordinarily out of date; its code of honour derives from a time of + cruder and lower conceptions of human relationship. It apprehends the + State as a mere “ring” kept about private disputations; it has not begun + to move towards the modern conception of the collective enterprise as the + determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its business as a mere + play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or between men and men. + They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer wrongs, they evade + dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and compensations. The + primary business of the law is held to be decision in these wrangles, and + as wrangling is subject to artistic elaboration, the business of the + barrister is the business of a professional wrangler; he is a bravo in wig + and gown who fights the duels of ordinary men because they are incapable, + very largely on account of the complexities of legal procedure, of + fighting for themselves. His business is never to explore any fundamental + right in the matter. His business is to say all that can be said for his + client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said against his + client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain and the United + States of America is the judge, and whose habits and interests all incline + him to disregard the realities of the case in favour of the points in the + forensic game, then adjudicates upon the contest. . . . + </p> + <p> + Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern + conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the world is + openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court will exist only + to adjust the differing views of men as to the manner of their service to + God; the only right of action one man will have against another will be + that he has been prevented or hampered or distressed by the other in + serving God. The idea of the law court will have changed entirely from a + place of dispute, exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The + individual or some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON + GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against + the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of + legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. . . + . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not + otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and + administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity is + one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction that + it was not Christianity that took possession of the Roman empire, but an + imperial adventurer who took possession of an all too complaisant + Christianity. + </p> + <p> + Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the religious + from which they arose, it will have become evident that the essential work + of anyone who is conversant with the existing practice and literature of + the law and whose natural abilities are forensic, will lie in the + direction of reconstructing the theory and practice of the law in harmony + with modern conceptions, of making that theory and practice clear and + plain to ordinary men, of reforming the abuses of the profession by + working for the separation of bar and judiciary, for the amalgamation of + the solicitors and the barristers, and the like needed reforms. These are + matters that will probably only be properly set right by a quickening of + conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of men is the help and + service so necessary to the practical establishment of God’s kingdom, as + of men learned and experienced in the law. And there is no reason why for + the present an advocate should not continue to plead in the courts, + provided he does his utmost only to handle cases in which he believes he + can serve the right. Few righteous cases are ill-served by a frank + disposition on the part of lawyer and client to put everything before the + court. Thereby of course there arises a difficult case of conscience. What + if a lawyer, believing his client to be in the right, discovers him to be + in the wrong? He cannot throw up the case unless he has been scandalously + deceived, because so he would betray the confidence his client has put in + him to “see him through.” He has a right to “give himself away,” but not + to “give away” his client in this fashion. If he has a chance of a private + consultation I think he ought to do his best to make his client admit the + truth of the case and give in, but failing this he has no right to be + virtuous on behalf of another. No man may play God to another; he may + remonstrate, but that is the limit of his right. He must respect a + confidence, even if it is purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that + here the barrister is in a cleft stick, and that he must see the business + through according to the confidence his client has put in him—and + afterwards be as sorry as he may be if an injustice ensues. And also I + would suggest a lawyer may with a fairly good conscience defend a guilty + man as if he were innocent, to save him from unjustly heavy penalties. . . + . + </p> + <p> + This comparatively full discussion of the barrister’s problem has been + embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical fashion, just + those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in real life. Religious + conviction gives us a general direction, but it stands aside from many of + these entangled struggles in the jungle of conscience. Practice is often + easier than a rule. In practice a lawyer will know far more accurately + than a hypothetical case can indicate, how far he is bound to see his + client through, and how far he may play the keeper of his client’s + conscience. And nearly every day there happens instances where the most + subtle casuistry will fail and the finger of conscience point + unhesitatingly. One may have worried long in the preparation and + preliminaries of the issue, one may bring the case at last into the final + court of conscience in an apparently hopeless tangle. Then suddenly comes + decision. + </p> + <p> + The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man states + his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and the special + pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case lies bare and + plain. + </p> + <p> + 8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + </p> + <p> + The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in existing + governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with the acceptance + of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At the worst Caesar is a + usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at the best he is provisional. + Modern casuistry makes no great trouble for the believing public official. + The chief business of any believer is to do the work for which he is best + fitted, and since all state affairs are to become the affairs of God’s + kingdom it is of primary importance that they should come into the hands + of God’s servants. It is scarcely less necessary to a believing man with + administrative gifts that he should be in the public administration, than + that he should breathe and eat. And whatever oath or the like to usurper + church or usurper king has been set up to bar access to service, is an + oath imposed under duress. If it cannot be avoided it must be taken rather + than that a man should become unserviceable. All such oaths are unfair and + foolish things. They exclude no scoundrels; they are appeals to + superstition. Whenever an opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, + the servant of God will seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he + will take it. + </p> + <p> + The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of statement; + it is to do as much as one can of God’s work. + </p> + <p> + 9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + </p> + <p> + It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official and his + oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged minister of religion + who finds that faith in the true God has ousted his formal beliefs. + </p> + <p> + This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the intellectual life + of the last hundred years. It has been increasingly difficult for any + class of reading, talking, and discussing people such as are the bulk of + the priesthoods of the Christian churches to escape hearing and reading + the accumulated criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the popularly + accepted story of man’s fall and salvation. Some have no doubt defeated + this universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and honestly + established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the articles and + disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the creeds they profess + and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their positions in the + priesthood. But a great number have neither resisted the bacillus of + criticism nor left the churches to which they are attached. They have + adopted compromises, they have qualified their creeds with modifying + footnotes of essential repudiation; they have decided that plain + statements are metaphors and have undercut, transposed, and inverted the + most vital points of the vulgarly accepted beliefs. One may find within + the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, Atheists, disbelievers in + immortality, attenuators of miracles; there is scarcely a doubt or a cavil + that has not found a lodgment within the ample charity of the English + Establishment. I have been interested to hear one distinguished Canon + deplore that “they” did not identify the Logos with the third instead of + the second Person of the Trinity, and another distinguished Catholic + apologist declare his indifference to the “historical Jesus.” Within most + of the Christian communions one may believe anything or nothing, provided + only that one does not call too public an attention to one’s eccentricity. + The late Rev. Charles Voysey, for example, preached plainly in his church + at Healaugh against the divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only when + he published his sermons under the provocative title of “The Sling and the + Stone,” and caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that + he was indicted and deprived. + </p> + <p> + Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in + which they find themselves are often very plausible. It is probable that + in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious + dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child. It + has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development and + controversy that beliefs have been really sharp. A creed, like a coin, it + may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is worn, or + bears the image of a vanished king. The religious life is a reality that + has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of the priest or + minister is with the religious life and not with the poor symbols that may + indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact no more than + indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain that the church + and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of religion, that + the religious life is sustained not by its propositions but by its + routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of spiritual things + with professional divines, will find this is the substance of the case for + the ecclesiastical sceptic. His church, he will admit, mumbles its + statement of truth, but where else is truth? What better formulae are to + be found for ineffable things? And meanwhile—he does good. + </p> + <p> + That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess the + worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a matter of + ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy to + understand. + </p> + <p> + Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. If a + professional religious has any justification at all for his + professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and greatness + of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are not + proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion of what + should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a priest pretend to do + when his primary business is the truth and his method a lie? The oaths and + incidental conformities of men who wish to serve God in the state are on a + different footing altogether from the falsehood and mischief of one who + knows the true God and yet recites to a trustful congregation, foists upon + a trustful congregation, a misleading and ill-phrased Levantine creed. + </p> + <p> + Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of his + temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every ordained + priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that he has truly + realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to repeat his creed + again. His course seems plain and clear. It becomes him to stand up before + the flock he has led in error, and to proclaim the being and nature of the + one true God. He must be explicit to the utmost of his powers. Then he may + await his expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is sufficient for him to + go away silently, making false excuses or none at all for his retreat. He + has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of his conforming years. + </p> + <p> + 10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + </p> + <p> + Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from God? + </p> + <p> + This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it + reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious + interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and the + Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion sweeps past + and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans and Methodists, + in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of God. Arminians seem + merely to have insisted that God has conditioned himself, and by his own + free act left men free to accept or reject salvation. To the realist type + of mind—here as always I use “realist” in its proper sense as the + opposite of nominalist—to the old-fashioned, over-exact and + over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague and + unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of + intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not + Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that there + is no clear line to be drawn between the saved and the lost. Realists like + an exclusive flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a natural weakness of + humanity to be forced into extreme positions by argument. It is probable, + as I have already suggested, that the absolute attributes of God were + forced upon Christianity under the stresses of propaganda, and it is + probable that the theory of a super-human obstinancy beyond salvation + arose out of the irritations natural to theological debate. It is but a + step from the realisation that there are people absolutely unable or + absolutely unwilling to see God as we see him, to the conviction that they + are therefore shut off from God by an invincible soul blindness. + </p> + <p> + It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + </p> + <p> + Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there are + those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our experience. + They are people answering to the “hard-hearted,” to the “stiff-necked + generation” of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and even confess to + standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They show themselves incapable + of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty or truth or goodness. They are + altogether remote from intelligent sacrifice. To every test they betray + vileness of texture; they are mean, cold, wicked. There are people who + seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are ever ready to do harsh + and cruel things, whose use for social feeling is the malignant boycott, + and for prosperity, monopolisation and humiliating display; who seize upon + religion and turn it into persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on + the altars of some joyless vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no + use for them, and it is very easy indeed to step from that persuasion to + the belief that God has no use for them. + </p> + <p> + And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the people + with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the few broad + and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we experience, who + lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful conceptions of God, and are + apparently quite incapable of distinguishing between what is practically + and what is spiritually good. + </p> + <p> + It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way to + God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which we of + course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper or the + pickpocket or the “smart” woman or the loan-monger or the village oaf than + he is of the swine in the sty. But are we justified in thus limiting God + to the measure of our moral and intellectual understandings? Because some + people seem to me steadfastly and consistently base or hopelessly and + incurably dull and confused, does it follow that there are not phases, + albeit I have never chanced to see them, of exaltation in the one case and + illumination in the other? And may I not be a little restricting my + perception of Good? While I have been ready enough to pronounce this or + that person as being, so far as I was concerned, thoroughly damnable or + utterly dull, I find a curious reluctance to admit the general proposition + which is necessary for these instances. It is possible that the difference + between Arminian and Calvinist is a difference of essential intellectual + temperament rather than of theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally + Arminian as I am temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the + nature of God to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can + only suspect, and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + </p> + <p> + Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you think, + as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and damned, then I + cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other people can be damned. But + that is not to believe that there are people damned at the outset by their + moral and intellectual insufficiency; that is not to make out that there + is a class of essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The religious + life preceded clear religious understanding and extends far beyond its + range. + </p> + <p> + In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to true + belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. The + essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. I am + passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own mind, and to + make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and particularly to other + people who may seem to be feeling with me; I do perceive that error is + evil if only because a faith based on confused conceptions and partial + understandings may suffer irreparable injury through the collapse of its + substratum of ideas. I doubt if faith can be complete and enduring if it + is not secured by the definite knowledge of the true God. Yet I have also + to admit that I find the form of my own religious emotion paralleled by + people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy and no agreement in + phrase or formula at all. + </p> + <p> + There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling and this + discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as myself and a + convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself in phrases and images + of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs and fountains of precious + blood, a most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom to me, and expressing + itself by shouts, clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and rhythmic + pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object sought, + release from self, and the same end, the end of identification with the + immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. I see God + indubitably present in these excitements, and I see personalities I could + easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for spiritual + understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. One may be led + into the absurdest underestimates of religious possibilities if one + estimates people only coldly and in the light of everyday life. There is a + sub-intellectual religious life which, very conceivably, when its utmost + range can be examined, excludes nothing human from religious cooperation, + which will use any words to its tune, which takes its phrasing ready-made + from the world about it, as it takes the street for its temple, and yet + which may be at its inner point in the directest contact with God. + Religion may suffer from aphasia and still be religion; it may utter + misleading or nonsensical words and yet intend and convey the truth. The + methods of the Salvation Army are older than doctrinal Christianity, and + may long survive it. Men and women may still chant of Beulah Land and cry + out in the ecstasy of salvation; the tambourine, that modern revival of + the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, may still stir dull nerves to a first + apprehension of powers and a call beyond the immediate material compulsion + of life, when the creeds of Christianity are as dead as the lore of the + Druids. + </p> + <p> + The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies may be + accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release among types and + strata that by the standards of a trained and explicit intellectual, may + seem spiritually hopeless. It is not necessary to imagine the whole world + critical and lucid in order to imagine the whole world unified in + religious sentiment, comprehending the same phrases and coming together + regardless of class and race and quality, in the worship and service of + the true God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than hieratic + tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head grows clear the + body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of men modern religion + says, “This is the God it has always been in your nature to apprehend.” + </p> + <p> + 11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + </p> + <p> + Now that we are discussing the general question of individual conduct, it + will be convenient to take up again and restate in that relationship, + propositions already made very plainly in the second and third chapters. + Here there are several excellent reasons for a certain amount of + deliberate repetition. . . . + </p> + <p> + All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with + religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a part in + most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern faith. Let us be + as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned by the health and fitness + and vigour of his servants; we owe him our best and utmost; but he has no + special concern and no special preferences or commandments regarding + sexual things. + </p> + <p> + Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he + welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in + adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand between him + and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity of the creeds, in + this as in so many respects, does not rise to the level of its founder, + and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as though the name of Christ had + not been ascendant for nineteen centuries, that sex is a secondary thing + to religion, and sexual status of no account in the presence of God. It + follows quite logically that God does not discriminate between man and + woman in any essential things. We leave our individuality behind us when + we come into the presence of God. Sex is not disavowed but forgotten. Just + as one’s last meal is forgotten—which also is a difference between + the religious moment of modern faith and certain Christian sacraments. You + are a believer and God is at hand to you; heed not your state; reach out + to him and he is there. In the moment of religion you are human; it + matters not what else you are, male or female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or + Gentile, bond or free. It is AFTER the moment of religion that we become + concerned about our state and the manner in which we use ourselves. + </p> + <p> + We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual treatment + of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the king of the + whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and all things. He is + not particularly concerned about any aspect, because he is concerned about + every aspect. We have to make the best use of ourselves for his kingdom; + that is our rule of life. That rule means neither painful nor frantic + abstinences nor any forced way of living. Purity, cleanliness, health, + none of these things are for themselves, they are for use; none are magic, + all are means. The sword must be sharp and clean. That does not mean that + we are perpetually to sharpen and clean it—which would weaken and + waste the blade. The sword must neither be drawn constantly nor always + rusting in its sheath. Those who have had the wits and soul to come to + God, will have the wits and soul to find out and know what is waste, what + is vanity, what is the happiness that begets strength of body and spirit, + what is error, where vice begins, and to avoid and repent and recoil from + all those things that degrade. These are matters not of the rule of life + but of the application of life. They must neither be neglected nor made + disproportionally important. + </p> + <p> + To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It is + difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can be very + fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also linked to + God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and the changes of years + they can be held steadfast by his undying steadfastness. But it has been + felt by many deep-feeling people that there is so much kindred between the + love and trust of husband and wife and the feeling we have for God, that + it is reasonable to consider the former also as a sacred thing. They do so + value that close love of mated man and woman, they are so intent upon its + permanence and completeness and to lift the dear relationship out of the + ruck of casual and transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it + were, into the very presence and assent of God. There are many who dream + and desire that they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more + who would fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest + desire to make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the + world the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of + such a sacramental union. + </p> + <p> + There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only after + years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by vows and + promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and spirit; and + it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it, and God. And + the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like the love of God, + is, even then, not the relationship of the man and woman as man and woman + but the comradeship and trust and mutual help and pity that joins them. No + doubt that from the mutual necessities of bodily love and the common + adventure, the necessary honesties and helps of a joint life, there + springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and best of human + companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of mortal + comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary coming + together and pairing off of men and women is in itself divine or + sacramental or anything of the sort. Being in love is a condition that may + have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part an + experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often love + only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is greed, it + is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, it is the + instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is adventure, it + is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores ‘lovers’ meet and part. + Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God in themselves or + others. + </p> + <p> + Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no reason + why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness should be made + an obligation upon all men and women who are attracted by one another, nor + why it should be woven into the essentials of religion. For women much + more than for men is this confusion dangerous, lest a personal love should + shape and dominate their lives instead of God. “He for God only; she for + God in him,” phrases the idea of Milton and of ancient Islam; it is the + formula of sexual infatuation, a formula quite easily inverted, as the end + of Goethe’s Faust (“The woman soul leadeth us upward and on”) may witness. + The whole drift of modern religious feeling is against this exaggeration + of sexual feeling, these moods of sexual slavishness, in spiritual things. + Between the healthy love of ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of + God, there is an essential contrast and opposition in this, that + preference, exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of + the former and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is + the intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the + latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It may + be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest + unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and + romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they + have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved for + God and a devotion that is normally evoked only by little children in + their mother’s heart. It is not the way between most of the men and women + one meets in this world. + </p> + <p> + But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is nothing + else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SIXTH + </h2> + <h3> + MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + </p> + <p> + If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain and + read Metchnikoff’s “Nature of Man,” he will find there an interesting + summary of the biological facts that bear upon and destroy the delusion + that there is such a thing as individual perfection, that there is even + ideal perfection for humanity. With an abundance of convincing instances + Professor Metchnikoff demonstrates that life is a system of + “disharmonies,” capable of no perfect way, that there is no “perfect” + dieting, no “perfect” sexual life, no “perfect” happiness, no “perfect” + conduct. He releases one from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption + that there is even an ideal “perfection” in organic life. He sweeps out of + the mind with all the confidence and conviction of a physiological + specialist, any idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable perfect + man. It is in the nature of every man to fall short at every point from + perfection. From the biological point of view we are as individuals a + series of involuntary “tries” on the part of an imperfect species towards + an unknown end. + </p> + <p> + Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. We are + disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to the defects of + our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our teeth or to those + vestigial structures of our body that endanger our physical welfare. + Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not an inch to our + spiritual and moral stature. + </p> + <p> + 2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + </p> + <p> + Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by the + term “damnation,” in the light of this view of human reality. Most of the + great world religions are as clear as Professor Metchnikoff that life in + the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and in most cases they supply a + more or less myth-like explanation, they declare that evil is one side of + the conflict between Ahriman and Ormazd, or that it is the punishment of + an act of disobedience, of the fall of man and world alike from a state of + harmony. Their case, like his, is that THIS world is damned. + </p> + <p> + We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this world + there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after death, so + nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear to be an exploit + of theory; they have a superadded appearance even in the Christian system; + the same common tendency to superlatives and absolutes that makes men + ashamed to admit that God is finite, makes them seek to enhance the merits + of their Saviour by the device of everlasting fire. Conquest over the + sorrow of life and the fear of death do not seem to them sufficient for + Christ’s glory. + </p> + <p> + Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the universe + as something derived deductively from the past to a conception of it as + something gathering itself adventurously towards the future, involves a + release from the supposed necessity to tell a story and explain why. + Instead comes the inquiry, “To what end?” We can say without mental + discomfort, these disharmonies are here, this damnation is here—inexplicably. + We can, without any distressful inquiry into ultimate origins, bring our + minds to the conception of a spontaneous and developing God arising out of + those stresses in our hearts and in the universe, and arising to overcome + them. Salvation for the individual is escape from the individual distress + at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. + And damnation can be nothing more and nothing less than the failure or + inability or disinclination to make that escape. + </p> + <p> + Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for salvation + has crept at a number of points into contemporary religious thought. It + was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the damned go to their own hells of + their own accord. It underlies a queer poem, “Simpson,” by that + interesting essayist upon modern Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which I + have recently read. Simpson dies and goes to hell—it is rather like + the Cromwell Road—and approves of it very highly, and then and then + only is he completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is + certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock’s idea. It is his definition of + damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is damnation. It is surrender + to limitation; it is acquiescence in “disharmony”; it is making peace with + that enemy against whom God fights for ever. + </p> + <p> + (But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for ever + remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous chapter, a + quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me from the Calvinistic + conclusion of Mr. Brock’s satire.) + </p> + <p> + 3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + </p> + <p> + Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by + nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, as we + have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is an incident. + One is an essential and the other an incidental separation from God. It is + possible to sin without being damned; and to be damned is to be in a state + when sin scarcely matters, like ink upon a blackamoor. You cannot have + questions of more or less among absolute things. + </p> + <p> + It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as + the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always in + touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever have any + motive again that is not also God’s motive. Then one finds oneself caught + unawares by a base impulse. We discover that discontinuousness of our + apparently homogeneous selves, the unincorporated and warring elements + that seemed at first altogether absent from the synthesis of conversion. + We are tripped up by forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by + tricks of appearance. There come dull patches of existence; those + mysterious obliterations of one’s finer sense that are due at times to the + little minor poisons one eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill-health + and bodily disorder, or one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of + emotion, brewed deep in the animal being and released by any trifling + accident, such as personal jealousy or lust, or one is relaxed by + contentment into vanity. All these rebel forces of our ill-coordinated + selves, all these “disharmonies,” of the inner being, snatch us away from + our devotion to God’s service, carry us off to follies, offences, + unkindness, waste, and leave us compromised, involved, and regretful, + perplexed by a hundred difficulties we have put in our own way back to + God. + </p> + <p> + This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God can help + us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such reparation as we + can, to begin the battle again further back and lower down. From God comes + the power to anticipate the struggle with one’s rebel self, and to resist + and prevail over it. + </p> + <p> + 4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + </p> + <p> + An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + </p> + <p> + It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several + lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper in these + institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or selected in + some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go out to their + addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and as the author of + various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that is, to any one much + forced back upon reading, the writer is particularly accessible to this + type of correspondent. The letters come, some manifesting a hopeless + disorder that permits of no reply, but some being the expression of minds + overlaid not at all offensively by a web of fantasy, and some (and these + are the more touching ones and the ones that most concern us now) as + sanely conceived and expressed as any letters could be. They are written + by people living lives very like the lives of us who are called “sane,” + except that they lift to a higher excitement and fall to a lower + depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or melancholia slip + the leash of mental consistency altogether and take abnormal forms. They + tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the safer ways of mediocrity do + but glimpse under the influence of drugs, or in dreams and rare moments of + controllable extravagance. Then the insane become “glorious,” or they + become murderous, or they become suicidal. All these letter-writers in + confinement have convinced their fellow-creatures by some extravagance + that they are a danger to themselves or others. + </p> + <p> + The letters that come from such types written during their sane intervals, + are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware—I think they + should know—of the offences or possibilities that justify their + incarceration, write with a certain resentment at their position; others + are entirely acquiescent, but one or two complain of the neglect of + friends and relations. But all are as manifestly capable of religion and + of the religious life as any other intelligent persons during the lucid + interludes that make up nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . Suppose + now one of these cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes the form of + some cruel, disgusting, or destructive disposition that may become at + times overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with sinful + tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that the mania + which defines his position must be the primary if not the cardinal + business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with that is different + not in kind but merely in degree from the problem of lusts, vanities, and + weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It is an unconquered tract, a + great rebel province in his being, which refuses to serve God and tries to + prevent him serving God, and succeeds at times in wresting his capital out + of his control. But his relationship to that is the same relationship as + ours to the backward and insubordinate parishes, criminal slums, and + disorderly houses in our own private texture. + </p> + <p> + It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only the + better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered disposition in + him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is obliged to be the + keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His beast gets loose. His + only resort is to warn those about him when he feels that jangling or + excitement of the nerves which precedes its escapes, to limit its range, + to place weapons beyond its reach. And there are plenty of human beings + very much in his case, whose beasts have never got loose or have got + caught back before their essential insanity was apparent. And there are + those uncertifiable lunatics we call men and women of “impulse” and + “strong passions.” If perhaps they have more self-control than the really + mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent being + falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than the + obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; + nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the sedulous + preparation of defences and palliatives against the return of the storm. + </p> + <p> + This discussion of the lunatic’s case gives us indeed, usefully coarse and + large, the lines for the treatment of every human weakness by the servants + of God. A “weakness,” just like the lunatic’s mania, becomes a particular + charge under God, a special duty for the person it affects. He has to + minimise it, to isolate it, to keep it out of mischief. If he can he must + adopt preventive measures. . . . + </p> + <p> + These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our usefulness + to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, they wound our + self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who would trust us, they + discredit the faith we profess. If they break through and break through + again it is natural and proper that men and women should cease to believe + in our faith, cease to work with us or to meet us frankly. . . . Our sins + do everything evil to us and through us except separate us from God. + </p> + <p> + Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a power. Here + God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of God in his heart can + defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and undaunted after a hundred + falls, escape from the grip of lusts and revenges, make head against + despair, thrust back the very onset of madness. He is still the same man + he was before he came to God, still with his libidinous, vindictive, + boastful, or indolent vein; but now his will to prevail over those + qualities can refer to an exterior standard and an external interest, he + can draw upon a strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + </p> + <p> + 5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + </p> + <p> + But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found God. + You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment you truly + repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation as is possible + there remains no barrier between you and God. Directly you cease to hide + or deny or escape, and turn manfully towards the consequences and the + setting of things right, you take hold again of the hand of God. Though + you sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest of + you. Nothing but utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off from + God. + </p> + <p> + There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that it can + shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you but lift up your + head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness and cry to him, God is + there, God will not fail you. A convicted criminal, frankly penitent, and + neither obdurate nor abject, whatever the evil of his yesterdays, may + still die well and bravely on the gallows to the glory of God. He may step + straight from that death into the immortal being of God. + </p> + <p> + This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. There + is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can stand + between God and man. + </p> + <p> + <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> + <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> + </p> + <div style="height: 4em;"> + <br /><br /><br /><br /> + </div> + <h2> + CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + </h2> + <h3> + THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + </h3> + <p> + 1. THE WORLD DAWN + </p> + <p> + As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new + religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations are + still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the continuance + of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. There are many + signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be coming as swiftly + as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may seem at present as + though nothing very much were happening, except for the fact that the old + familiar constellations of theology have become a little pallid and lost + something of their multitude of points. But nothing fades of itself. The + deep stillness of the late night is broken by a stirring, and the morning + star of creedless faith, the last and brightest of the stars, the star + that owes its light to the coming sun is in the sky. + </p> + <p> + There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir before + a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the bluster of + the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God without any + reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. The Deists and + Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never did that. Their + “Supreme Being” repudiated nothing. He was merely the whittled stump of + the Trinity. It is in the last few decades that the western mind has + slipped loose from this absolutist conception of God that has dominated + the intelligence of Christendom at least, for many centuries. Almost + unconsciously the new thought is taking a course that will lead it far + away from the moorings of Omnipotence. It is like a ship that has slipped + its anchors and drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and vanishing + stars, out to the open sea. . . . + </p> + <p> + 2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + </p> + <p> + In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this renascent + faith. + </p> + <p> + For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief in an + infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds trained + under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which have hitherto + been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between pseudo-Christian + religion or denial, but also it opens the way towards the completest + understanding and sympathy and participation with the kindred movements + for release and for an intensification of the religious life, that are + going on outside the sphere of the Christian tradition and influence + altogether. Allusion has already been made to the sympathetic devotional + poetry of Rabindranath Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism + parallel with and assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + </p> + <p> + It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is + entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an evil + entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is too easily + assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with renunciation, not + merely of self but of being, with the escape from all effort of any sort + into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed neither the spirit of China nor of + Islam nor of the every-day life of any people in the world. It is not the + spirit of the Sikh nor of these newer developments of Hindu thought. It + has never been the spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia seem + disposed to give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as + Europeans, do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we can + live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain by + escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not a nation + nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at this moment by + the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of God. This is not an age + of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in all the world besides. + </p> + <p> + Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that which + ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are being thrust + aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the spirit and + intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a heart-searching + Dialogue of the Dead, “How we settled our religions for ever and ever,” + between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and one of Nizam-al-Mulk’s tame + theologians. They would be drawn together by the same tribulations; they + would be in the closest sympathy against the temerity of the moderns; they + would have a common courtliness. The Quran is but little read by + Europeans; it is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that it does + not contain; there is much confusion in people’s minds between its text + and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its followers; + in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it has chiefly to + tell of is the leadership of one individualised militant God who claims + the rule of the whole world, who favours neither rank nor race, who would + lead men to righteousness. It is much more free from sacramentalism, from + vestiges of the ancient blood sacrifice, and its associated sacerdotalism, + than Christianity. The religion that will presently sway mankind can be + reached more easily from that starting-point than from the confused + mysteries of Trinitarian theology. Islam was never saddled with a creed. + With the very name “Islam” (submission to God) there is no quarrel for + those who hold the new faith. . . . + </p> + <p> + All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the old + beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, its + Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its “religion without theology,” its + attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to that + living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human mind almost + instinctively insists. . . . + </p> + <p> + It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the same + God. + </p> + <p> + So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and incidental + and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective to-day, may be and + most probably will be, in quite a few years a great flood of religious + unanimity pouring over and changing all human affairs, sweeping away the + old priesthoods and tabernacles and symbols and shrines, the last crumb of + the Orphic victim and the last rag of the Serapeum, and turning all men + about into one direction, as the ships and houseboats swing round together + in some great river with the uprush of the tide. . . . + </p> + <p> + 3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + </p> + <p> + Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and identities of + the revived religion that has returned to them, certain questions of + organisation and assembly are being discussed. Every new religious + development is haunted by the precedents of the religion it replaces, and + it was only to be expected that among those who have recovered their faith + there should be a search for apostles and disciples, an attempt to + determine sources and to form original congregations, especially among + people with European traditions. + </p> + <p> + These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are imitative. + This time there has been no revelation here or there; there is no claim to + a revelation but simply that God has become visible. Men have thought and + sought until insensibly the fog of obsolete theology has cleared away. + There seems no need therefore for special teachers or a special + propaganda, or any ritual or observances that will seem to insist upon + differences. The Christian precedent of a church is particularly + misleading. The church with its sacraments and its sacerdotalism is the + disease of Christianity. Save for a few doubtful interpolations there is + no evidence that Christ tolerated either blood sacrifices or the mysteries + of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses were superadded after his + martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a gospel; he sent out not medicine + men but apostles. + </p> + <p> + No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They become + naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each will be + disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour’s attention to what he + sees. The necessary elements of religion could be written on a post card; + this book, small as it is, bulks large not by what it tells positively but + because it deals with misconceptions. We may (little doubt have I that we + do) need special propagandas and organisations to discuss errors and keep + back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free speech and restrain the + enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want a church to keep our + faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for that there is no need for + orthodoxies and controlling organisations of statement. It is for each man + to follow his own impulse, and to speak to his like in his own fashion. + </p> + <p> + Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name of + the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge of + religion. + </p> + <p> + The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation in + dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the + unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by robes + and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom Christ + detested and denounced, is full of warning against the dangers of a + church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the material needs of men, + for the draining of towns, the marshalling of traffic, the collecting of + eggs, and the carrying of letters, the distribution of bread, the + notification of measles, for hygiene and economics and suchlike affairs. + The better we organise such things, the freer and better equipped we leave + men’s minds for nobler purposes, for those adventures and experiments + towards God’s purpose which are the reality of life. But all organisations + must be watched, for whatever is organised can be “captured” and misused. + Repentance, moreover, is the beginning and essential of the religious + life, and organisations (acting through their secretaries and officials) + never repent. God deals only with the individual for the individual’s + surrender. He takes no cognisance of committees. + </p> + <p> + Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are most + mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together is to + purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to strengthen one’s + sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of mankind. Before you know + where you are you will have exchanged the spirit of God for ESPRIT DE + CORPS. You will have reinvented the SYMBOL; you will have begun to keep + anniversaries and establish sacramental ceremonies. The disposition to + form cliques and exclude and conspire against unlike people is all too + strong in humanity, to permit of its formal encouragement. Even such + organisation as is implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living + faith coagulates as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so much + as a definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for worship + and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of little manifest + good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and place for God to irradiate + your soul. + </p> + <p> + All these are very valid objections to the church-forming disposition. + </p> + <p> + 4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + </p> + <p> + Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out about God. + They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + </p> + <p> + Why should they not shout and share? + </p> + <p> + Let them express all that they desire to express in their own fashion by + themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. Let them shout + chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a gang if so they can + work the better. But let them guard themselves against the idea that they + can have God particularly or exclusively with them in any such + undertaking. Or that so they can express God rather than themselves. + </p> + <p> + That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the idea of + a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of altars, away from + the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical cannibalism, beyond the + sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the modern spirit holds that + religion cannot be organised or any intermediary thrust between God and + man, that does not preclude infinite possibilities of organisation and + collective action UNDER God and within the compass of religion. There is + no reason why religious men should not band themselves the better to + attain specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, there is no + objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not against + subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations that may + claim to be comprehensive. + </p> + <p> + For example there is no reason why one should not—and in many cases + there are good reasons why one should—organise or join associations + for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass very + readily into propaganda. + </p> + <p> + Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves and + to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not merely prayer + but formal prayer and the support of others, praying in unison. The writer + does not understand this desire or need for collective prayer very well, + but there are people who appear to do so and there is no reason why they + should not assemble for that purpose. And there is no doubt that divine + poetry, divine maxims, religious thought finely expressed, may be heard, + rehearsed, collected, published, and distributed by associations. The + desire for expression implies a sort of assembly, a hearer at least as + well as a speaker. And expression has many forms. People with a strong + artistic impulse will necessarily want to express themselves by art when + religion touches them, and many arts, architecture and the drama for + example, are collective undertakings. I do not see why there should not + be, under God, associations for building cathedrals and suchlike great + still places urgent with beauty, into which men and women may go to rest + from the clamour of the day’s confusions; I do not see why men should not + make great shrines and pictures expressing their sense of divine things, + and why they should not combine in such enterprises rather than work to + fill heterogeneous and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival + and religious clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly bring + with it a great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, and writings + of all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying places, temples and + retreats, the creation of pictures and sculptures. It is not necessary to + have priestcraft and an organised church for such ends. Such enrichments + of feeling and thought are part of the service of God. + </p> + <p> + And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities for + research in pure science; associations for the teaching and simplification + of languages; associations for promoting and watching education; + associations for the discussion of political problems and the + determination of right policies. In all these ways men may multiply their + use by union. Only when associations seek to control things of belief, to + dictate formulae, restrict religious activities or the freedom of + religious thought and teaching, when they tend to subdivide those who + believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, do they become + antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + </p> + <p> + 5. THE STATE IS GOD’S INSTRUMENT + </p> + <p> + Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and + immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow that + religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed essential + to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round world and all + mankind, that we should see in every government, great and small, from the + council of the world-state that is presently coming, down to the village + assembly, the instrument of God’s practical control. Religion which is + free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to a perpetual + unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of the whole + organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there will be no + church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state is God’s + church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you leave conscience + and speech and writing and teaching about divine things absolutely free, + and that you try to set no nets about God. + </p> + <p> + The world is God’s and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and we + find our freedom in him. + </p> + <p> + THE ENVOY + </p> + <p> + So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I believe + to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and spiritual + confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It is a statement and + record; not a theory. There is nothing in all this that has been invented + or constructed by the writer; I have been but scribe to the spirit of my + generation; I have at most assembled and put together things and thoughts + that I have come upon, have transferred the statements of “science” into + religious terminology, rejected obsolescent definitions, and + re-coordinated propositions that had drifted into opposition. Thus, I see, + ideas are developing, and thus have I written them down. It is a secondary + matter that I am convinced that this trend of intelligent opinion is a + discovery of truth. The reader is told of my own belief merely to avoid an + affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + </p> + <p> + The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing and + disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many different + schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is one that has + been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in the work of one I am + happy to write of as my friend and master, that very great American, the + late William James. It was an idea that became increasingly important to + him towards the end of his life. And it is the most releasing idea in the + system. + </p> + <p> + Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of these + present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to what is called + Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile Deism of the eighteenth + century, of “votre Etre supreme” who bored the friends of Robespierre, was + a sterile thing, it has little relation to these modern developments, it + conceived of God as an infinite Being of no particular character whereas + God is a finite being of a very especial character. On the other hand men + and women who have set themselves, with unavoidable theological + preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual teachings and + quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that have interwoven + insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a curious modernity + about very many of Christ’s recorded sayings. Revived religion has also, + no doubt, been the receiver of many religious bankruptcies, of Positivism + for example, which failed through its bleak abstraction and an unspiritual + texture. Religion, thus restated, must, I think, presently incorporate + great sections of thought that are still attached to formal Christianity. + The time is at hand when many of the organised Christian churches will be + forced to define their positions, either in terms that will identify them + with this renascence, or that will lead to the release of their more + liberal adherents. Its probable obligations to Eastern thought are less + readily estimated by a European writer. + </p> + <p> + Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the privilege and + possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it is appearing + simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a crystallising + substance appears here and there in a super-saturated solution. It is a + process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. It needs no other + guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but freedom, free speech, + and honest statement. Out of the most mixed and impure solutions a growing + crystal is infallibly able to select its substance. The diamond arises + bright, definite, and pure out of a dark matrix of structureless + confusion. + </p> + <p> + This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the advent + and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no authorities, no + teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and struggle among the + other things; simply it grows clear. There will be no putting an end to + it. It arrives inevitably, and it will continue to separate itself out + from confusing ideas. It becomes, as it were the Koh-i-noor; it is a + Mountain of Light, growing and increasing. It is an all-pervading + lucidity, a brightness and clearness. It has no head to smite, no body you + can destroy; it overleaps all barriers; it breaks out in despite of every + enclosure. It will compel all things to orient themselves to it. + </p> + <p> + It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be here + or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the day comes to + the ships that put to sea. + </p> + <p> + It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + </p> + <p> + THE END <br /> <br /> + </p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg’s God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + +***** This file should be named 1046-h.htm or 1046-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/1046/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: God The Invisible King + +Author: Herbert George Wells + +Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1046] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + +by H. G. Wells + + + +CONTENTS + + +PREFACE + +1. THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + +2. HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + +3. THE LIKENESS OF GOD + +4. THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + +5. THE INVISIBLE KING + +6. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + +7. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + +THE ENVOY + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious +belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it is +not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a profound +belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in its +statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for the +expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several particulars +opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be sympathetic with +all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is well to prepare the +prospective reader for statements that may jar harshly against deeply +rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him at the outset that the +departure from accepted beliefs is here no vague scepticism, but a quite +sharply defined objection to dogmas very widely revered. Let the writer +state the most probable occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon +which this book will be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma +of the Trinity. The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, +which forcibly crystallised the controversies of two centuries and +formulated the creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are +based, was one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of +all religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations +which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only +disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief +possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for what +he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that undignified +gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or propitiatory in this +connection. He criticises the creeds explicitly and frankly, because he +believes it is particularly necessary to clear them out of the way of +those who are seeking religious consolation at this present time of +exceptional religious need. He does little to conceal his indignation at +the role played by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing +the religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from +among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible +to storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an +ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read on +at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a believer, +but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to them more +sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That the writer +cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is declaring that +there is a living God, different altogether from that Triune God and +nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book is like that of a +missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and smash some Polynesian +divinity of shark's teeth and painted wood and mother-of-pearl. To the +writer such elaborations as "begotten of the Father before all worlds" +are no better than intellectual shark's teeth and oyster shells. His +purpose, like the purpose of that missionary, is not primarily to shock +and insult; but he is zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a +reverence that stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning +and proceeds with his matter. + +His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only incidentally and +because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal Christianity. + +In a previous book, "First and Last Things" (Constable and Co.), he has +stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and thought +as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of metaphysics that +is, seems to him to be a discussion of the relations of class and +individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist and the Realist, the +opposition of the One and the Many, the contrast of the Ideal and the +Actual, all these oppositions express a certain structural and essential +duality in the activity of the human mind. From an imperfect recognition +of that duality ensue great masses of misconception. That was the +substance of "First and Last Things." In this present book there is no +further attack on philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we +work at a less fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and +religious ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a +whole world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about +the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to think +that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a confusion +of intention due to a double meaning of the word "God"; that the word +"God" conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but several essentially +different ideas, incompatible one with another, and falling mainly into +one or other of two divergent groups; and that people slip carelessly +from one to the other of these groups of ideas and so get into +ultimately inextricable confusions. + +The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought that +preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was essentially +a struggle--obscured, of course, by many complexities--to reconcile and +get into a relationship these two separate main series of God-ideas. + +Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two +antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by +speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the +other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward God; +the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps developed most +highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a conception of God +tending to pantheism, to an idea of a comprehensive God as ruling +with justice rather than affection, to a conception of aloofness and +awestriking worshipfulness. The second idea, which is opposed to this +idea of an absolute God, is the God of the human heart. The writer would +suggest that the great outline of the theological struggles of that +phase of civilisation and world unity which produced Christianity, was a +persistent but unsuccessful attempt to get these two different ideas +of God into one focus. It was an attempt to make the God of Nature +accessible and the God of the Heart invincible, to bring the former into +a conception of love and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and +flowers and the dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer +metaphor for such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the +trouble is that it seems impossible to most people to continue to +regard the relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical +metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment of +intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + +And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and +inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator God, +of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the invention of a +Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as something bridging the +great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator descending into the sphere of the +human understanding. That, and the suggestive influence of the Egyptian +Trinity that was then being worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had +saturated the thought of Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in +unity, are probably the realities that account for the Third Person of +the Christian Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the +discussions that shaped the Christian theology we know were dominated +by such natural and fundamental thoughts. These discussions were, +of course, complicated from the outset; and particularly were they +complicated by the identification of the man Jesus with the theological +Christ, by materialistic expectations of his second coming, by +materialistic inventions about his "miraculous" begetting, and by the +morbid speculations about virginity and the like that arose out of +such grossness. They were still further complicated by the idea of the +textual inspiration of the scriptures, which presently swamped thought +in textual interpretation. That swamping came very early in the +development of Christianity. The writer of St. John's gospel appears +still to be thinking with a considerable freedom, but Origen is already +hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of St. John's gospel +was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He was emasculated +mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He quotes; his +predecessor thinks. + +But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions of +early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the definition +of a position. The writer's position here in this book is, firstly, +complete Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, and secondly, +entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, so to speak, is +the key of his book. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same term +God. He uses the word God therefore for the God in our hearts only, +and he uses the term the Veiled Being for the ultimate mysteries of the +universe, and he declares that we do not know and perhaps cannot know in +any comprehensible terms the relation of the Veiled Being to that living +reality in our lives who is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking +from the point of view of practical religion, he is restricting and +defining the word God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he +is restricting it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence +from our religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the +religious life. + +Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an +Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book +acceptable to them if they will read "the Christ God" where the writer +has written "God." They will then differ from him upon little more than +the question whether there is an essential identity in aim and quality +between the Christ God and the Veiled Being, who answer to their +Creator God. This the orthodox post Nicaean Christians assert, and many +pre-Nicaeans and many heretics (as the Cathars) contradicted with its +exact contrary. The Cathars, Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with +the Manichaeans, that the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The +Christ God was his antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. +And passing beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be +found to many problems in comparative theology in this distinction +between the Being of Nature (cf. Kant's "starry vault above") and the +God of the heart (Kant's "moral law within"). The idea of an antagonism +seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the +Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to +be "antagonistic." On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and modern +Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God the creator +is altogether and without distinction also God the King of Mankind. +Christianity stands somewhere between such complete identification and +complete antagonism. It admits a difference in attitude between Father +and Son in its distinction between the Old Dispensation (of the Old +Testament) and the New. Every possible change is rung in the great +religions of the world between identification, complete separation, +equality, and disproportion of these Beings; but it will be found that +these two ideas are, so to speak, the basal elements of all theology in +the world. The writer is chary of assertion or denial in these +matters. He believes that they are speculations not at all necessary to +salvation. He believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions +upon these points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials +of religion. The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and +exclusively with the God of the Heart. He declares as his own opinion, +and as the opinion which seems most expressive of modern thought, that +there is no reason to suppose the Veiled Being either benevolent or +malignant towards men. But if the reader believes that God is Almighty +and in every way Infinite the practical outcome is not very different. +For the purposes of human relationship it is impossible to deny that +God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, as struggling and taking a part against +evil. + +The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely +extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in this +book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer entangled in +such speculations and disputes. + + +Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and that +is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter IV., +1), nowhere does he discuss the question of personal immortality. [It +is discussed in "First and Last Things," Book IV, 4.] He omits this +question because he does not consider that it has any more bearing upon +the essentials of religion, than have the theories we may hold about the +relation of God and the moral law to the starry universe. The latter is +a question for the theologian, the former for the psychologist. Whether +we are mortal or immortal, whether the God in our hearts is the Son of +or a rebel against the Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of +salvation, is still our self-identification with God, irrespective of +consequences, and the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and +in the world. Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect +righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final personal +death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have no such appetite +for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; what, of me, is +identified with God, is God; what is not is of no more permanent value +than the snows of yester-year. + +H. G. W. + +Dunmow, May, 1917. + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + + +1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + + +Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an +exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago +and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found in existence, +and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the +new belief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, +to trace how Christianity drifted into the consciousness of the Roman +world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always had +hitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The +renascent religion that is now taking shape, it seems, had no founder; +it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; it has +always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to +see. It is perhaps plainer than it was and to more people--that is all. + +It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those +who hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of Christianity. +Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley's, speak of it as Christianity +without Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, +as a matter of fact, a very fine and subtle theology, flatly opposed +to any belief that could, except by great stretching of charity and +the imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a +parallelism with the system ascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far +more probably an accidental rather than a sympathetic coincidence. Of +that the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging. + +This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only the +opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an extreme +neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more than a sect +of Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst the uproar +and emotions of the council of Nicaea, when the more enthusiastic +Trinitarians stuffed their fingers in their ears in affected horror at +the arguments of old Arius, that the cardinal mystery of the Trinity +was established as the essential fact of Christianity. Throughout those +three centuries, the centuries of its greatest achievements and noblest +martyrdoms, Christianity had not defined its God. And even to-day it has +to be noted that a large majority of those who possess and repeat +the Christian creeds have come into the practice so insensibly from +unthinking childhood, that only in the slightest way do they realise the +nature of the statements to which they subscribe. They will speak +and think of both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the +doctrine of the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire +fabric of all the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly +Arians as though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the +world forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But +whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be, +there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to give +Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement possible. +Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its maturity, +whatever the indecisions of its childhood or the confusions of its +decay. The renascent religion that one finds now, a thing active and +sufficient in many minds, has still scarcely come to self-consciousness. +But it is so coming, and this present book is very largely an attempt +to state the shape it is assuming and to compare it with the beliefs +and imperatives and usages of the various Christian, pseudo-Christian, +philosophical, and agnostic cults amidst which it has appeared. + +The writer's sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that he +speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist +nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no pretence, +therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his best to be as +fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the reader must reckon +with this bias. He has found this faith growing up in himself; he has +found it, or something very difficult to distinguish from it, growing +independently in the minds of men and women he has met. They have been +people of very various origins; English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, +French, people brought up in a "Catholic atmosphere," Positivists, +Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. Their diversity of source is as remarkable +as their convergence of tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon +parallel lines has come out to the same light. The new teaching is also +traceable in many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be +heard from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at +hand. + + + +2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + + +Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and any +recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or unknowingly, it +worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is fairly confronted with +the plain questions of the case, the vague identifications that are +still carelessly made with one or all of the persons of the Trinity +dissolve away. He will admit that his God is neither all-wise, nor +all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that he is neither the maker of heaven +nor earth, and that he has little to identify him with that hereditary +God of the Jews who became the "Father" in the Christian system. On the +other hand he will assert that his God is a god of salvation, that he is +a spirit, a person, a strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, +inspiring, and lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human +soul. He will be much less certain in his denials that his God has a +close resemblance to the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) +"Christ." . . . + +The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of +universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon any +God and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that sense +of God within them, that inner light which is the quintessence of the +religious experience, it was the True God that answered them. For the +True God is a generous God, not a jealous God; the very antithesis of +that bickering monopolist who "will have none other gods but Me"; and +when a human heart cries out--to what name it matters not--for a larger +spirit and a stronger help than the visible things of life can give, +straightway the nameless Helper is with it and the God of Man answers to +the call. The True God has no scorn nor hate for those who have accepted +the many-handed symbols of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. +Where there is faith, where there is need, there is the True God ready +to clasp the hands that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness +behind the ivory and gold. + +The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think clearly +among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above everything +else, a personality, and to be a personality is to have characteristics, +to be limited by characteristics; he is a Being, not us but dealing +with us and through us, he has an aim and that means he has a past and +future; he is within time and not outside it. And they point out that +this is really what everyone who prays sincerely to God or gets help +from God, feels and believes. Our practice with God is better than our +theory. None of us really pray to that fantastic, unqualified danse a +trois, the Trinity, which the wranglings and disputes of the worthies +of Alexandria and Syria declared to be God. We pray to one single +understanding person. But so far the tactics of those Trinitarians at +Nicaea, who stuck their fingers in their ears, have prevailed in this +world; this was no matter for discussion, they declared, it was a Holy +Mystery full of magical terror, and few religious people have thought +it worth while to revive these terrors by a definite contradiction. The +truly religious have been content to lapse quietly into the comparative +sanity of an unformulated Arianism, they have left it to the scoffing +Atheist to mock at the patent absurdities of the official creed. But one +magnificent protest against this theological fantasy must have been +the work of a sincerely religious man, the cold superb humour of that +burlesque creed, ascribed, at first no doubt facetiously and then quite +seriously, to Saint Athanasius the Great, which, by an irony far beyond +its original intention, has become at last the accepted creed of the +church. + +The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing to +its end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become least +patient with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new believers are +very definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the nature and growth +of the Christian creeds and ideas. There has grown up a practice of +assuming that, when God is spoken of, the Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea +is meant. But that God trails with him a thousand misconceptions and +bad associations; his alleged infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange +preferences, his vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even +make a caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different +and antagonistic figure. + +It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has led +the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite qualities for +their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the mental and moral +quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries who +saddled Christendom with its characteristic dogmas, and the extreme +poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas within which they thought. +Many of these makers of Christianity, like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who +had even to be baptised after his election to his bishopric), had been +pitchforked into the church from civil life; they lived in a time +of pitiless factions and personal feuds; they had to conduct their +disputations amidst the struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs +and favourites swayed their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their +decisions. There was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian +world than there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience +of educated opinion by which a theory could be judged did not equal, +either in numbers or accuracy of information, the present population of +Constantinople. To these conditions we owe the claim that the Christian +God is a magic god, very great medicine in battle, "in hoc signo +vinces," and the argument so natural to the minds of those days and so +absurd to ours, that since he had ALL power, all knowledge, and existed +for ever and ever, it was no use whatever to set up any other god +against him. . . . + +By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental belief, +without which everyone was to be "damned everlastingly," a conception +of God and of Christ's relation to God, of which even by the Christian +account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally unaware or so +negligent and careless of the future comfort of his disciples as +scarcely to make mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, so far as the +relationship of the Third Person goes, hangs almost entirely upon one +ambiguous and disputed utterance in St. John's gospel (XV. 26). Most of +the teachings of Christian orthodoxy resolve themselves to the attentive +student into assertions of the nature of contradiction and repartee. +Someone floats an opinion in some matter that has been hitherto vague, +in regard, for example, to the sonship of Christ or to the method of +his birth. The new opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds +unaccustomed to so definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil +they fly to a contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit +that they worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor +deny the divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be +polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from +the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the +theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions, +and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a +reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian +doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology +by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and +still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle +was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political +opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing +appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit +unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the +midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all +Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all +those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the +beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not +care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased +to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was +secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by +threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common +faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the +Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic +destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none +of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a +real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left +to work themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist +of Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the +sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to +the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice +formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory +of the reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the +cement of Christian unity. + +It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith are +becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the Trinitarian's +deity. At present if anyone who has left the Christian communion +declares himself a believer in God, priest and parson swell with +self-complacency. There is no reason why they should do so. That many of +us have gone from them and found God is no concern of theirs. It is +not that we who went out into the wilderness which we thought to be +a desert, away from their creeds and dogmas, have turned back and are +returning. It is that we have gone on still further, and are beyond that +desolation. Never more shall we return to those who gather under the +cross. By faith we disbelieved and denied. By faith we said of that +stuffed scarecrow of divinity, that incoherent accumulation of antique +theological notions, the Nicene deity, "This is certainly no God." And +by faith we have found God. . . . + + + +3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + + +There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he +should supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective propagandist +thing to say: "OUR God made the whole universe. Don't you think that +it would be wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, as you admit, do +anything of the sort?" + +The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this +style of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into +the Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic advantages, +demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great religious system, +the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the temptation to secure for +its divinity the honour and title of Creator. Modern religion is like +Buddhism in that respect. It offers no theory whatever about the origin +of the universe. It does not reach behind the appearances of space +and time. It sees only a featureless presumption in that playing with +superlatives which has entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the +Hegelians with the delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or +the Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known +things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence is +a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or good or +ill. Of that Being, whether it is simple or complex or divine, we +know nothing; to us it is no more than the limit of understanding, +the unknown beyond. It may be of practically limitless intricacy and +possibility. The new religion does not pretend that the God of its life +is that Being, or that he has any relation of control or association +with that Being. It does not even assert that God knows all or much more +than we do about that ultimate Being. + +For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. Human +analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the Veiled Being +reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as necessary forms +of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of whirls in the +ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a knowledge, an +understanding of relationship, a power and courage that will pierce into +those black wrappings. To that it may be our God, the Captain of Mankind +will take us. + +That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with +the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The Veiled +Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the mirror upon +which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if it waited in a +great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and cannot deal with it. +It may be that they may never be able to deal with it. + + + +4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + + +So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself to +the modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love and +hate. It is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming out +of this veiled being, proceeding out of it in a manner altogether +inconceivable, is another lesser being, an impulse thrusting through +matter and clothing itself in continually changing material forms, +the maker of our world, Life, the Will to Be. It comes out of that +inscrutable being as a wave comes rolling to us from beyond the horizon. +It is as it were a great wave rushing through matter and possessed by +a spirit. It is a breeding, fighting thing; it pants through the jungle +track as the tiger and lifts itself towards heaven as the tree; it is +the rabbit bolting for its life and the dove calling to her mate; it +crawls, it flies, it dives, it lusts and devours, it pursues and eats +itself in order to live still more eagerly and hastily; it is every +living thing, of it are our passions and desires and fears. And it +is aware of itself not as a whole, but dispersedly as individual +self-consciousness, starting out dispersedly from every one of the +sentient creatures it has called into being. They look out for their +little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, full of the passions +of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, submitting only to +brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They are beings of strain +and conflict and competition. They are living substance still mingled +painfully with the dust. The forms in which this being clothes itself +bear thorns and fangs and claws, are soaked with poison and bright with +threats or allurements, prey slyly or openly on one another, hold their +own for a little while, breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . . + +This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, the +Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother Nature. We +may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the Gnostics meant +by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed all the Gnostic +books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may speculate whether +this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is the Dark God of the +Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun worshippers. But in contemporary +thought there is no conviction apparent that this Demiurge is either +good or evil; it is conceived of as both good and evil. If it gives all +the pain and conflict of life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, +the delight and hope of youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a +hundred thousand sorts of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful +limbs of man and woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And +in it, as part of it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, +struggling against the final abandonment to death, do we all live, +as the beasts live, glad, angry, sorry, revengeful, hopeful, weary, +disgusted, forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, bored, in pain, mood +after mood but always fearing death, with no certainty and no coherence +within us, until we find God. And God comes to us neither out of the +stars nor out of the pride of life, but as a still small voice within. + + + +5. GOD IS WITHIN + + +God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works in men +and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a single person; he +has begun and he will never end. He is the immortal part and leader of +mankind. He has motives, he has characteristics, he has an aim. He is +by our poor scales of measurement boundless love, boundless courage, +boundless generosity. He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our +friend and brother and the light of the world. That briefly is the +belief of the modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel +idea about this God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This +is the God that men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as +the Messiah or the Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the +purposelessness of life. The new religion has but disentangled the idea +of him from the absolutes and infinities and mysteries of the Christian +theologians; from mythological virgin births and the cosmogonies and +intellectual pretentiousness of a vanished age. + +Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, +no mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere statement +of what we may all perceive and experience. We all live in the storm of +life, we all find our understandings limited by the Veiled Being; if +we seek salvation and search within for God, presently we find him. All +this is in the nature of things. If every one who perceives and states +it were to be instantly killed and blotted out, presently other people +would find their way to the same conclusions; and so on again and again. +To this all true religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, +must ultimately come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. +Christian thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian +theology and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection +about its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the +early fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of +reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them with +OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin birth, +with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic minds. How rich +is the literature of authoritative Christianity with decisions upon the +continuing virginity of Mary and the virginity of Joseph--ideas that +first arose in Arabia as a Moslem gloss upon Christianity--and how +little have these peepings and pryings to do with the needs of the heart +and the finding of God! + +Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such volumes +as that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled "The Faith and +the War," a volume in which the curious reader may contemplate deans and +canons, divines and church dignitaries, men intelligent and enquiring +and religiously disposed, all lying like overladen camels, panting +under this load of obsolete theological responsibility, groaning great +articles, outside the needle's eye that leads to God. + + + +6. THE COMING OF GOD + + +Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God +entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not argue +about God; it relates. It relates without any of those wrappings of awe +and reverence that fold so necessarily about imposture, it relates as +one tells of a friend and his assistance, of a happy adventure, of a +beautiful thing found and picked up by the wayside. + +So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal +salvation tallies very closely with the account of "conversion" as it +is given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not already +familiar to the reader of William James's "Varieties of Religious +Experience." It describes an initial state of distress with the +aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with the futility of +the individual life, a state of helpless self-disgust, of inability to +form any satisfactory plan of living. This is the common prelude known +to many sorts of Christian as "conviction of sin"; it is, at any rate, a +conviction of hopeless confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of +God comes into the distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without +substance or belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is +expounded by some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all +those of the new faith with whose personal experience I have any +intimacy, the idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea +floating about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, +but it is realised that if there were such a being he would supply the +needed consolation and direction, his continuing purpose would knit +together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take +the sting from death. Under this realisation the idea is pursued and +elaborated. For a time there is a curious resistance to the suggestion +that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by such phrases +as the Purpose in Things, as the Racial Consciousness, as the Collective +Mind. + +I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the idea +of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous prejudice against +divine personality created by the absurdities of the Christian teaching +and the habitual monopoly of the Christian idea. The picture of Christ +as the Good Shepherd thrusts itself before minds unaccustomed to the +idea that they are lambs. The cross in the twilight bars the way. It is +a novelty and an enormous relief to such people to realise that one may +think of God without being committed to think of either the Father, the +Son, or the Holy Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not +seemed possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the +idea that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so +much about that God and so little of any other. With that release their +minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of God. + +Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This +cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is the +attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in oneself. +It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin to oneself, +sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in aim. It is +completer and more intimate, but it is like standing side by side with +and touching someone that we love very dearly and trust completely. It +is as if this being bridged a thousand misunderstandings and brought us +into fellowship with a great multitude of other people. . . . + +"Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." + +The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the stars, +or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit and muse. +It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the battle. There +is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But after it has come +our lives are changed, God is with us and there is no more doubt of +God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one who was lonely and has +found a lover, like one who was perplexed and has found a solution. +One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the +confusion and evil within us and without. There comes into the heart an +essential and enduring happiness and courage. + +There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, but +under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has in this +manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a faith, however +mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to holiness. God who is +himself finite, who himself struggles in his great effort from strength +to strength, has no spite against error. Far beyond halfway he hastens +to meet the purblind. But God is against the darkness in their eyes. The +faith which is returning to men girds at veils and shadows, and would +see God plainly. It has little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil +of the temple in rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of +this huge friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little +beings. To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all +our days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with +him. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + + +1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + + +Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a lake +that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of living +water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much impurity. It is +synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from original complexities; +the sediment subsides. + +A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without +mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance +of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, or +nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is discord +evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At every need +consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, needs, are the +rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being through which the +light of consciousness shines--the light of consciousness and will of +which God is the sun. + +So that every need of human life, every disappointment and +dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men may +and do come to the realisation of God. + +There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human life +from which there does not come or has not come a contribution to men's +religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth effort, feel +doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill shadow of their +mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility of help from +without, the idea of eluding frustration, the aspiration towards +immortality. It is possible to classify the appeals men make for God +under the headings of their chief system of effort, their efforts to +understand, their fear and their struggles for safety and happiness, the +craving of their restlessness for peace, their angers against +disorder and their desire for the avenger; their sexual passions and +perplexities. . . . + +Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort +of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind +of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in the +synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the idea of +God grows clear. The effort to understand completely, for example, +leads to the endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the inherent +infirmities of the human mind. But in these days one does not argue +greatly about dogma. Almost every conceivable error about unity, about +personality, about time and quantity and genus and species, about +begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity and every kink +in the difficult mind of man, has been thrust forward in some form of +dogma. Beside the errors of thought are the errors of emotion. Fear and +feebleness go straight to the Heresies that God is Magic or that God +is Providence; restless egotism at leisure and unchallenged by urgent +elementary realities breeds the Heresies of Mysticism, anger and hate +call for God's Judgments, and the stormy emotions of sex gave mankind +the Phallic God. Those who find themselves possessed by the new spirit +in religion, realise very speedily the necessity of clearing the mind +of all these exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The +search for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value +until most has been swept away. + + + +2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + + +One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely the +most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result from +wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those which are +the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the heresies of the +clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The former are of endless +variety and complexity; the latter are in comparison natural, simple +confusions. The former are the errors of the study, the latter the +superstitions that spring by the wayside, or are brought down to us in +our social structure out of a barbaric past. + +To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate +doctrine of the Trinity, dogmas about God's absolute qualities, such odd +deductions as the accepted Christian teachings about the virginity of +Mary and Joseph, and the like. All these things are parts of orthodox +Christianity. Yet none of them did Christ, even by the Christian +account, expound or recommend. He treated them as negligible. It was +left for the Alexandrians, for Alexander, for little, red-haired, +busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out exactly what their Master was +driving at, three centuries after their Master was dead. . . . + +Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack their +inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state unnecessary +perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the marginal error +that creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit blinds them to the +limitations upon their thinking. They weave spider-like webs of muddle +and disputation across the path by which men come to God. It would not +matter very much if it were not that simpler souls are caught in these +webs. Every great religious system in the world is choked by such webs; +each system has its own. Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which +make up doctrinal Christianity and imprison the mind of the western +world to-day, not one seems to have been known to the nominal founder +of Christianity. Jesus Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; +never spoke clearly of the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of +salvation and the significance of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose +that he left his apostles without instructions, that were necessary to +their eternal happiness, that he could give them the Lord's Prayer but +leave them to guess at the all-important Creed,* and that the Church +staggered along blindly, putting its foot in and out of damnation, +until the "experts" of Nicaea, that "garland of priests," marshalled by +Constantine's officials, came to its rescue. . . . From the conversion +of Paul onward, the heresies of the intellect multiplied about Christ's +memory and hid him from the sight of men. We are no longer clear about +the doctrine he taught nor about the things he said and did. . . . + + * Even the "Apostles' Creed" is not traceable earlier than + the fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched + formulary. Rutinius explains that it was not written down + for a long time, but transmitted orally, kept secret, and + used as a sort of password among the elect. + +We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all at +heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless here to +spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different formulae in +which the orthodox have attempted to believe in something of the sort. +There are several useful encyclopaedias of sects and heresies, compact, +but still bulky, to which the curious may go. There are ten thousand +different expositions of orthodoxy. No one who really seeks God thinks +of the Trinity, either the Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of +the Sabellian or the Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of +those theories made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, +who sit on lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the +temples of India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of +the human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural +heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human character, +and which are common to all religions. Against these it is necessary to +keep constant watch. They return very insidiously. + + + +3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + + +One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is to +consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + +It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving our +souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all too apt to +hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the poor triumph of +acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people who have been led +to believe themselves religious, are in reality still keeping back their +own souls and trying to use God for their own purposes. God is nothing +more for them as yet than a magnificent Fetish. They did not really want +him, but they have heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls +think to make use of him. They call upon his name, they do certain +things that are supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such +as saying prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in +a blind, industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early +Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, +or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these +fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the normal +course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial log-roller. +He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty ailments, contrives +unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the like, he averts +bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and does a thousand +such services for his little clique of faithful people. The pious are +represented as being constantly delighted by these little surprises, +these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the divinity. Or contrawise +he contrives spiteful turns for those who fail in their religious +attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking children, or disorganises the +careful business schemes of the ungodly. He is represented as going +Sabbath-breakering on Sunday morning as a Staffordshire worker +goes ratting. Ordinary everyday Christianity is saturated with this +fetishistic conception of God. It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT +JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly advocated in the parish magazine. It is +an idea taken over by Christianity with the rest of the qualities of +the Hebrew God. It is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their +recognition of weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, +but it is entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true +God. + +There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical called +THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with portraits of +various clergymen of the Church of England, and of ladies and gentlemen +who belong to the little school of thought which this magazine +represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect entirely within the +Established Church of England, that is to say within the Anglican +communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It contains among other papers +a very entertaining summary by a gentleman entitled--I cite the unusual +title-page of the periodical--"Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.," of the views +of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are +distinctly hostile views. Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only +upon these anticipatory condemnations but also upon the relations of the +weather to this war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God +has been persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points +out that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the +British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet state of +the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in the winter +of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in delaying the +relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the difficult question +why the Deity, having once decided upon intervention, did not, instead +of this comparatively trivial meteorological assistance, adopt the +more effective course of, for example, exploding or spoiling the German +stores of ammunition by some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting +their gunfire by a sudden local modification of the laws of refraction +or gravitation. + +Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only +conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible in +the established church, and that I am charging orthodox Christianity +here with nothing that has ever been officially repudiated. I find +indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer Mackenzie repeated in +endless official Christian utterances on the part of German and British +and Russian divines. The Bishop of Chelmsford, for example, has recently +ascribed our difficulties in the war to our impatience with long +sermons--among other similar causes. Such Christians are manifestly +convinced that God can be invoked by ritual--for example by special +days of national prayer or an increased observance of Sunday--or made +malignant by neglect or levity. It is almost fundamental in their +idea of him. The ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic +pettiness of God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and +resentments of "Heaven" is at least equally strong. + +But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such God +of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men's ends or the ends of +nations or associations of men; he is careless of our ceremonies +and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our follies and +weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, he does not +coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs us. . . . + + + +4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + + +Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that +calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause and +effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is pulling +about the order of events for our personal advantages. + +The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in "Tartarin +in the Alps." You will remember how Tartarin's friend assured him that +all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon attracting tourists and +far too wise and kind to permit them to venture into real danger, +that all the precipices were netted invisibly, and all the loose rocks +guarded against falling, that avalanches were prearranged spectacles and +the crevasses at their worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment +bags. If the mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned +back by specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved +with incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of +the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a timid +soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And provided there +is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory works well. It would +work altogether well if there were no crevasses. + +Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and escaped. +But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into a crevasse? + +There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis +Younghusband called "Within." [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is the +confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in Providence +until he was already well advanced in years. He went through battles and +campaigns, he filled positions of great honour and responsibility, he +saw much of the life of men, without altogether losing his faith. The +loss of a child, an Indian famine, could shake it but not overthrow it. +Then coming back one day from some races in France, he was knocked down +by an automobile and hurt very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and +mind. His sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost +to see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and +the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a fine +essential simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he could not do +so. His confidence in the benevolent intervention of God was altogether +destroyed. His book tells of this shattering, and how labouriously +he reconstructed his religion upon less confident lines. It is a book +typical of an age and of a very English sort of mind, a book well worth +reading. + +That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but how +near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + + +"The existence of an outside Providence," he writes, "who created us, +who watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful Father, +we have found impossible longer to believe in. But of the existence of a +Holy Spirit radiating upward through all animate beings, and finding its +fullest expression, in man in love, and in the flowers in beauty, we +can be as certain as of anything in the world. This fiery spiritual +impulsion at the centre and the source of things, ever burning in us, +is the supremely important factor in our existence. It does not always +attain to light. In many directions it fails; the conditions are too +hard and it is utterly blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. +But in a few it bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who +in some heavenly moment of their lives have not been conscious of its +presence. We may not be able to give it outward expression, but we know +that it is there." . . . + + +God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess restraining +and correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would fly into the air, +there is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly for you or keep an +ill-tended engine going; if you would cross a glacier, no God nor angel +guides your steps amidst the slippery places. He will not even mind your +innocent children for you if you leave them before an unguarded fire. +Cherish no delusions; for yourself and others you challenge danger and +chance on your own strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those +you care for. Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. +But God will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the +dark ice-cave God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will die +with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave deaths. He +will come so close to you that at the last you will not know whether it +is you or he who dies, and the present death will be swallowed up in his +victory. + + +5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + + +God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us from +ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience and +adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; he +makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared him to the +sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands quietly beside +one, shoulder to shoulder. + +The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape from +life and action; it is the release of life and action from the prison of +the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of Quietism, of many +mystics. Commonly such people are people of some wealth, able to command +services for all their everyday needs. They make religion a method of +indolence. They turn their backs on the toil and stresses of existence +and give themselves up to a delicious reverie in which they flirt with +the divinity. They will recount their privileges and ecstasies, and how +ingeniously and wonderfully God has tried and proved them. But indeed +the true God was not the lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a +spiritual troubadour wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. +The true God goes through the world like fifes and drums and flags, +calling for recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must +accept his discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not +by thinking about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + + + +6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + + +Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for moral +indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. They were +more often "wrath" than not. Such was the temperament of the Semitic +deity who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps under the +influence of the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian Trinity and +who became also the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of unregenerate men +against everything that is unlike themselves, against strange people +and cheerful people, against unfamiliar usages and things they do +not understand, embodied itself in this conception of a malignant and +partisan Deity, perpetually "upset" by the little things people did, +and contriving murder and vengeance. Now this God would be drowning +everybody in the world, now he would be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, +now he would be inciting his congenial Israelites to the most terrific +pogroms. This divine "frightfulness" is of course the natural +human dislike and distrust for queer practices or for too sunny a +carelessness, a dislike reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape +in us, liberating the latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it +an excuse and pressing permission upon it, handing the thing hated and +feared over to its secular arm. . . . + + * It is not so generally understood as it should be among + English and American readers that a very large proportion of + early Christians before the creeds established and + regularised the doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely + that Jehovah was God; they regarded Christ as a rebel + against Jehovah and a rescuer of humanity from him, just as + Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. These beliefs survived + for a thousand years throughout Christendom: they were held + by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the + Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The + catholic church found it necessary to prohibit the + circulation of the Old Testament among laymen very largely + on account of the polemics of the Cathars against the Hebrew + God. But in this book, be it noted, the word Christian, + when it is not otherwise defined, is used to indicate only + the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. + +It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct +for restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish sweet +familiar things, that these things of the True God should so readily +liberate cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with a light to +tend and protect her sleeping child, and setting the house on fire. None +the less, right down to to-day, the heresy of God the Revengeful, God +the Persecutor and Avenger, haunts religion. It is only in quite recent +years that the growing gentleness of everyday life has begun to make men +a little ashamed of a Deity less tolerant and gentle than themselves. +The recent literature of the Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this +trouble. + +Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for denying +the irascibility of his God and teaching "the Kaffirs of Natal" the +dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. "We cannot allow it to be said," +the Dean of Cape Town insisted, "that God was not angry and was not +appeased by punishment." He was angry "on account of Sin, which is a +great evil and a great insult to His Majesty." The case of the Rev. +Charles Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a second assertion of the +Church's insistence upon the fierceness of her God. This case is not to +be found in the ordinary church histories nor is it even mentioned in +the latest edition of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it +appears to have been a very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the +church would prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey +to-day. + + + +7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + + +Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of +miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the overtaxed +parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with such a God and +he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word "God" first came +into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational restraint, as Bogey, +as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. God Bogey is a great +convenience to the nursery-maid who wants to leave Fear to mind her +charges and enforce her disciplines, while she goes off upon her own +aims. But indeed, the teaching of God Bogey is an outrage upon the soul +of a child scarcely less dreadful than an indecent assault. The reason +rebels and is crushed under this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many +minds never rise again from their injury. They remain for the rest of +life spiritually crippled and debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a +persuasion of relentless cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + +I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his Hell +were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still believed +in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a fantastic +monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, perpetually waiting +to condemn and to "strike me dead"; his flames as ready as a grill-room +fire. He was over me and about my feebleness and silliness and +forgetfulness as the sky and sea would be about a child drowning in +mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a child of thirteen, by the grace of +the true God in me, I flung this Lie out of my mind, and for many years, +until I came to see that God himself had done this thing for me, the +name of God meant nothing to me but the hideous scar in my heart where a +fearful demon had been. + +I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with this +bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, still +living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place where God +should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not be kindly to +formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish observances; +they dare not look at the causes of things. They are afraid of sunshine, +of nakedness, of health, of adventure, of science, lest that old +watching spider take offence. The voice of the true God whispers in +their hearts, echoes in speech and writing, but they avert themselves, +fear-driven. For the true God has no lash of fear. And how the +foul-minded bigot, with his ill-shaven face, his greasy skin, his thick, +gesticulating hands, his bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this +harvest of fear the ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown +for him! How he loves the importance of denunciation, and, himself +a malignant cripple, to rally the company of these crippled souls to +persecute and destroy the happy children of God! . . . + +Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a real +wickedness of the priest that is different from other wickedness, and +that affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and strange perversions +of instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop of Canterbury speak +for me. This that follows is the account given by Archbishop Tait in a +debate in the Upper House of Convocation (July 3rd, 1877) of one of the +publications of a certain SOCIETY OF THE HOLY CROSS: + + +"I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the instruction +of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of it, the statement +that between the ages of six and six and a half years would be the +proper time for the inculcation of the teaching which is to be found in +the book. Now, six to six and a half is certainly a very tender age, and +to these children I find these statements addressed in the book: + +"'It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must +acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.' + +"I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many there +were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that they did not +mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to God direct; that +it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, to its mother, or to +its father, but was only to have recourse to the priest. But the +words, to say the least of them, are rash. Then comes the very obvious +question: + +"'Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to +his priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men their +sins. It was to priests alone that Jesus said: "Receive ye the Holy +Ghost." . . . Those who will not confess will not be cured. Sin is a +terrible sickness, and casts souls into hell.' + +"That is addressed to a child six years of age. + +"'I have known,' the book continues, 'poor children who concealed their +sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were tormented +with remorse, and if they had died in that state they would certainly +have gone to the everlasting fires of hell.'" . . . + + +Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen time +after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in their +preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion there are +among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of real worship, +lives no man may better; this that I write is not of all, perhaps not +of many priests. But there has been in all ages that have known +sacerdotalism this terrible type of the priest; priestcraft and priestly +power release an aggressive and narrow disposition to a recklessness of +suffering and a hatred of liberty that surely exceeds the badness of any +other sort of men. + + + +8. THE CHILDREN'S GOD + + +Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for +an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are still +children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy for them to +feel any great need of God. All things are still something God-like. . . . + +The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no +appetite for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour for +the attention of children. He is not like one of those senile uncles who +dream of glory in the nursery, who love to hear it said, "The children +adore him." If children are loved and trained to truth, justice, and +mutual forbearance, they will be ready for the true God as their needs +bring them within his scope. They should be left to their innocence, and +to their trust in the innocence of the world, as long as they can be. +They should be told only of God as a Great Friend whom some day they +will need more and understand and know better. That is as much as most +children need. The phrases of religion put too early into their mouths +may become a cant, something worse than blasphemy. + +Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs in +their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it does not +follow that therefore they should be afflicted with theological +formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they may dislike +or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a friend or a +distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a child, then he may +begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve him out of their slain +bodies into his shining immortality. Or if by some menial treachery, +through some prowling priest, the whisper of Old Bogey reaches our +children, then we may set their minds at ease by the assurance of his +limitless charity. . . . + +With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, and +that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + + + +9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + + +In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very +considerable disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of +sexual thought and feeling. But in the early days of religion the two +things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew prophets, +for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary "wrath" of +their God at this or that little dirtiness or irregularity or breach of +the sexual tabus. The ceremony of circumcision is clearly indicative +of the original nature of the Semitic deity who developed into the +Trinitarian God. So far as Christianity dropped this rite, so far +Christianity disavowed the old associations. But to this day the +representative Christian churches still make marriage into a mystical +sacrament, and, with some exceptions, the Roman communion exacts +the sacrifice of celibacy from its priesthood, regardless of the +mischievousness and maliciousness that so often ensue. Nearly every +Christian church inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can +contrive upon the illegitimate child. They do not treat illegitimate +children as unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and +an incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent this +statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, but let +them consult their orthodox authorities. + +One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred or +sinful in itself and what is held to be one's duty or a nation's duty +because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best thing to +do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or all of our +institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be justifiable. +But my case is not whether they can be justified by these tests but +that it is not by these tests that they are judged even to-day, by the +professors of the chief religions of the world. It is the temper and not +the conclusions of the religious bodies that I would criticise. These +sexual questions are guarded by a holy irascibility, and the most +violent efforts are made--with a sense of complete righteousness--to +prohibit their discussion. That fury about sexual things is only to be +explained on the hypothesis that the Christian God remains a sex God in +the minds of great numbers of his exponents. His disentanglement from +that plexus is incomplete. Sexual things are still to the orthodox +Christian, sacred things. + +Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only mediately +concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no more sexual +essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. The God of +Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as prescribing the +most petty and intimate of observances--many of which are now habitually +disregarded by the Christians who profess him. . . . It is part of the +evolution of the idea of God that we have now so largely disentangled +our conception of him from the dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual +rules that were once inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ +himself was one of the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is +the clearest evidence in several instances of his disregard of the +rule and his insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit +underlying and often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser +matter, has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further +than it was obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit his +principle that in all these matters there is no need for superstitious +fear, that the interpretation of the divine purpose is left to the +unembarrassed intelligence of men. The church has followed him far +enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests and ecclesiastics +against what they are pleased to consider impurity or sexual impiety, +a profound inconsistency. One seems to hear their distant protests when +one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or of Christ eating with publicans +and sinners. The clergy of our own days play the part of the +New Testament Pharisees with the utmost exactness and complete +unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern ecclesiastic conversing +with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary civility, unless she was in a very +high social position indeed, or blending with disreputable characters +without a dramatic sense of condescension and much explanatory by-play. +Those who profess modern religion do but follow in these matters a +course entirely compatible with what has survived of the authentic +teachings of Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, and that +religious passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual +things are a barbaric inheritance. + +But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption that +those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually anarchistic, +let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of the preceding +paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section which follows. +We would free men and women from exact and superstitious rules and +observances, not to make them less the instruments of God but more +wholly his. The claim of modern religion is that one should give oneself +unreservedly to God, that there is no other salvation. The believer owes +all his being and every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body +as clean, fine, wholesome, active and completely at God's service as +he can. There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such +a consecrated life. It is a matter between the individual and his +conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he may +do or not do, what he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any occasion. +Nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to determine and perform +the right act. Nothing can excuse his failure to do so. But what is here +being insisted upon is that none of these things has immediately to do +with God or religious emotion, except only the general will to do right +in God's service. The detailed interpretation of that "right" is for the +dispassionate consideration of the human intelligence. + +All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of +the emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most +obstinately recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is always +tending to leak back into religious feeling. Amongst the sex-tormented +priesthood of the Roman communion in particular, ignorant of the +extreme practices of the Essenes and of the Orphic cult and suchlike +predecessors of Christianity, there seems to be an extraordinary belief +that chastity was not invented until Christianity came, and that the +religious life is largely the propitiation of God by feats of sexual +abstinence. But a superstitious abstinence that scars and embitters +the mind, distorts the imagination, makes the body gross and keeps it +unclean, is just as offensive to God as any positive depravity. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE LIKENESS OF GOD + + +1. GOD IS COURAGE + +Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard as +the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of ideas aside +from our explanations, the path is cleared for the statement of what God +is. Since language springs entirely from material, spatial things, there +is always an element of metaphor in theological statement. So that I +have not called this chapter the Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + +And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + + + +2. GOD IS A PERSON + + +And next GOD IS A PERSON. + +Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion are +very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the axis, of +their religion. God is a person who can be known as one knows a friend, +who can be served and who receives service, who partakes of our nature; +who is, like us, a being in conflict with the unknown and the limitless +and the forces of death; who values much that we value and is against +much that we are pitted against. He is our king to whom we must be +loyal; he is our captain, and to know him is to have a direction in our +lives. He feels us and knows us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He +hopes and attempts. . . . God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no +Infinite. He is as real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + +Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking +about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, Show +us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the silences within, +presently they will hear him.) But when one argues, one finds oneself +suddenly in the net of those ancient controversies between species +and individual, between the one and the many, which arise out of the +necessarily imperfect methods of the human mind. Upon these matters +there has been much pregnant writing during the last half century. Such +ideas as this writer has to offer are to be found in a previous little +book of his, "First and Last Things," in which, writing as one without +authority or specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man +vividly interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to +elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, by +which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it here to +say that theological discussion may very easily become like the vision +of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent imperfections. If +we do not use our phraseology with a certain courage, and take that +of those who are trying to convey their ideas to us with a certain +politeness and charity, there is no end possible to any discussion in +so subtle and intimate a matter as theology but assertions, denials, and +wranglings. And about this word "person" it is necessary to be as clear +and explicit as possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of +mathematical sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible. + +Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of a +man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently decay; +we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that he has +forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, divided +against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On the +contrary we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to suppose him +continuous, definite, acting consistently and never forgetting. But only +abstract and theoretical persons are like that. We couple with him the +idea of a body. Indeed, in the common use of the word "person" there is +more thought of body than of mind. We speak of a lover possessing the +person of his mistress. We speak of offences against the person as +opposed to insults, libels, or offences against property. And the +gods of primitive men and the earlier civilisations were quite of that +quality of person. They were thought of as living in very splendid +bodies and as acting consistently. If they were invisible in the +ordinary world it was because they were aloof or because their "persons" +were too splendid for weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated +view of the person of the Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who +insisted upon seeing Zeus in the glories that were sacred to Juno, +was utterly consumed. The early Islamic conception of God, like the +conception of most honest, simple Christians to-day, was clearly, in +spite of the theologians, of a very exalted anthropomorphic personality +away somewhere in Heaven. The personal appearance of the Christian God +is described in The Revelation, and however much that description may be +explained away by commentators as symbolical, it is certainly taken by +most straightforward believers as a statement of concrete reality. +Now if we are going to insist upon this primary meaning of person and +individual, then certainly God as he is now conceived is not a person +and not an individual. The true God will never promenade an Eden or a +Heaven, nor sit upon a throne. + +But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian +theological thought--that, for instance, which has found such delicate +and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of Rabindranath +Tagore--has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic insistence upon +a body. From the earliest ages man's mind has found little or no +difficulty in the idea of something essential to the personality, a soul +or a spirit or both, existing apart from the body and continuing after +the destruction of the body, and being still a person and an individual. +From this it is a small step to the thought of a person existing +independently of any existing or pre-existing body. That is the idea +of theological Christianity, as distinguished from the Christianity +of simple faith. The Triune Persons--omnipresent, omniscient, and +omnipotent--exist for all time, superior to and independent of matter. +They are supremely disembodied. One became incarnate--as a wind eddy +might take up a whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern +religion conceive that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea +of spirituality, a disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the +limits of the conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that +a person, a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal +body. . . . They declare that God is without any specific body, that he +is immaterial, that he can affect the material universe--and that means +that he can only reach our sight, our hearing, our touch--through the +bodies of those who believe in him and serve him. + +His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, in his +essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with space. He is +not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. Since the period when +all the great theologies that prevail to-day were developed, there have +been great changes in the ideas of men towards the dimensions of time +and space. We owe to Kant the release from the rule of these ideas as +essential ideas. Our modern psychology is alive to the possibility of +Being that has no extension in space at all, even as our speculative +geometry can entertain the possibility of dimensions--fourth, fifth, Nth +dimensions--outside the three-dimensional universe of our experience. +And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an infinite +remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere immediately at +hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere immediately at +hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of men. He is in +immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + +But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter or +space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; that +he changes and becomes more even as a man's purpose gathers itself +together; that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a beginning, +an awakening, and that as mankind grows he grows. With our eyes he looks +out upon the universe he invades; with our hands, he lays hands upon +it. All our truth, all our intentions and achievements, he gathers to +himself. He is the undying human memory, the increasing human will. + +But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that this +is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who believe in the +new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they say, not an aggregate +but a synthesis. He is not merely the best of all of us, but a Being in +himself, composed of that but more than that, as a temple is more than a +gathering of stones, or a regiment is more than an accumulation of men. +They point out that a man is made up of a great multitude of cells, each +equivalent to a unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor +is he simply just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of +them. You can take away these and these and these, and he still remains. +And he can detach part of himself and treat it as if it were not +himself, just as a man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer the martyr +did, thrust his hand into the flames. A man is none the less himself +because his hair is cut or his appendix removed or his leg amputated. + +And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that +spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for all the +tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in Yorkshire? But +men love England, which is made up of such things. + +And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither +body nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to +him, though we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he +sometimes uses. And we may think of him as having moods and aspects--as +a man has--and a consistency we call his character. + +These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey this +modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person whose will +and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands the religious +life seeks conversion by argument. First one must feel the need of God, +then one must form or receive an acceptable idea of God. That much is no +more than turning one's face to the east to see the coming of the sun. +One may still doubt if that direction is the east or whether the sun +will rise. The real coming of God is not that. It is a change, an +irradiation of the mind. Everything is there as it was before, only now +it is aflame. Suddenly the light fills one's eyes, and one knows that +God has risen and that doubt has fled for ever. + + +3. GOD IS YOUTH + + +The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + +God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into the +future. + +Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is in +those systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian attempt to +represent or symbolise God the Father which is not a bearded, aged man. +White hair, beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred such symptoms of senile +decay are there. These marks of senility do not astonish our modern +minds in the picture of God, only because tradition and usage have +blinded our eyes to the absurdity of a time-worn immortal. Jove too and +Wotan are figures far past the prime of their vigour. These are gods +after the ancient habit of the human mind, that turned perpetually +backward for causes and reasons and saw all things to come as no more +than the working out of Fate,-- + + "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe." + +But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but our +future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure of +a beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his +strength. He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, eager +to go forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that was +still but a promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, discriminating +weapon, his eyes should be as bright as swords; his lips should fall +apart with eagerness for the great adventure before him, and he should +be in very fresh and golden harness, reflecting the rising sun. Death +should still hang like mists and cloud banks and shadows in the valleys +of the wide landscape about him. There should be dew upon the threads of +gossamer and little leaves and blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + + + +4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + + +One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most trite +and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that deserves +careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; there are people +who will say they love new potatoes; there are a multitude of loves +of different colours and values. There is the love of a mother for her +child, there is the love of brothers, there is the love of youth and +maiden, and the love of husband and wife, there is illicit love and the +love one bears one's home or one's country, there are dog-lovers and the +loves of the Olympians, and love which is a passion of jealousy. Love +is frequently a mere blend of appetite and preference; it may be +almost pure greed; it may have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit +self-forgetful nor generous. It is possible so to phrase things that the +furtive craving of a man for another man's wife may be made out to be +a light from God. Yet about all the better sorts of love, the sorts of +love that people will call "true love," there is something of that same +exaltation out of the narrow self that is the essential quality of the +knowledge of God. + +Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the +exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the windows +by which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is the open door +by which we freely go. And God never dies, nor disappoints, nor betrays. + +The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its +earlier phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much +possessiveness and exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced trust, +and far too great a kindred with jealousy to be like the love of God. +The former is a dramatic relationship that drifts to a climax, and then +again seeks presently a climax, and that may be satiated or fatigued. +But the latter is far more like the love of comrades, or like the +love of a man and a woman who have loved and been through much trouble +together, who have hurt one another and forgiven, and come to a complete +and generous fellowship. There is a strange and beautiful love that men +tell of that will spring up on battlefields between sorely wounded men, +and often they are men who have fought together, so that they will do +almost incredibly brave and tender things for one another, though but +recently they have been trying to kill each other. There is often a pure +exaltation of feeling between those who stand side by side manfully in +any great stress. These are the forms of love that perhaps come nearest +to what we mean when we speak of the love of God. + +That is man's love of God, but there is also something else; there is +the love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this is not +an indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love of a woman +for her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; God must love +his followers as a great captain loves his men, who are so foolish, so +helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet whose faith alone makes +him possible. It is an austere love. The spirit of God will not hesitate +to send us to torment and bodily death. . . . + +And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach +him. He has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to make +himself known to us. When at last the individual breaks through the +limiting darknesses to him, the irradiation of that moment, the smile +and soul clasp, is in God as well as in man. He has won us from his +enemy. We come staggering through into the golden light of his kingdom, +to fight for his kingdom henceforth, until at last we are altogether +taken up into his being. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + + + +1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + + +It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to drape +about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, the +honest Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth bare, is +constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. It will be +interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme instability of +absolute negation. + +Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who was +a very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the other day. +He was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man almost of the rank +and quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A decade or more ago he wrote +a book called "The Nature of Man," in which he set out very plainly a +number of illuminating facts about life. They are facts so illuminating +that presently, in our discussion of sin, they will be referred to +again. But it is not Professor Metchnikoff's intention to provide +material for a religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to +overthrow theology as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his +book, the thing upon which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no +inkling of the fact that he has no longer the right to conceive theology +as he conceives it. The development of his science has destroyed that +right. + +He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our ideas +of individuality and species, and how the import of theology is modified +through these changes. When he comes from his own world of modern +biology to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. He attacks +religion as he understood it when first he fell out with it fifty years +or more ago. + +Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes that +biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the general +scheme and method of our thinking. + +The influence of biology upon thought in general consists essentially +in diminishing the importance of the individual and developing the +realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of super-individual, a +modifying and immortal super-individual, maintaining itself against the +outer universe by the birth and death of its constituent individuals. +Natural History, which began by putting individuals into species as if +the latter were mere classificatory divisions, has come to see that +the species has its adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding +in interest and importance the individual adventure. "The Origin of +Species" was for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + +The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be +stated plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we current +individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us distributed between +two parents, then between four grandparents, and so on backward, we are +temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an ancestral diffusion; we +stand our trial, and presently our individuality is dispersed and +mixed again with other individualities in an uncertain multitude of +descendants. But the species is not like this; it goes on steadily from +newness to newness, remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual +life is a mere episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing +adventure of the species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble of +life and the distresses of life in the fact that the species is still +very painfully adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions under +which it lives. The conflict of life is a continual pursuit of +adjustment, and the "ills of life," of the individual life that is, +are due to its "disharmonies." Man, acutely aware of himself as an +individual adventure and unawakened to himself as a species, finds life +jangling and distressful, finds death frustration. He fails and falls as +a person in what may be the success and triumph of his kind. He does +not apprehend the struggle or the nature of victory, but only his own +gravitation to death and personal extinction. + +Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti-religious +because to him as to so many Europeans religion is confused with +priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with disagreeable early +impressions of irrational repression and misguidance. How completely he +misconceives the quality of religion, how completely he sees it as an +individual's affair, his own words may witness: + + +"Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The solutions +which as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as satisfactory. A future +life has no single argument to support it, and the non-existence of life +after death is in consonance with the whole range of human knowledge. On +the other hand, resignation as preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy +humanity, which has a longing for life, and is overcome by the thought +of the inevitability of death." + + +Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, and by +a future life the prolongation of individuality. But Buddhism does +not in truth appear ever to have been concerned with that, and modern +religious developments are certainly not under that preoccupation with +the narrower self. Buddhism indeed so far from "preaching resignation" +to death, seeks as its greater good a death so complete as to be +absolute release from the individual's burthen of KARMA. Buddhism seeks +an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY. The deeper one pursues religious +thought the more nearly it approximates to a search for escape from the +self-centred life and over-individuation, and the more it diverges from +Professor Metchnikoff's assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to +lose one's self. But Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied +that this is so, is then left free to take the very essentials of the +religious life as they are here conceived and present them as if +they were the antithesis of the religious life. His book, when it is +analysed, resolves itself into just that research for an escape from the +painful accidents and chagrins of individuation, which is the ultimate +of religion. + +At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true solution +round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his most hopeful +satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such a scientific +prolongation of life that the instinct for self-preservation will be at +last extinct. If that is not the very "resignation" he imputes to the +Buddhist I do not know what it is. He believes that an individual which +has lived fully and completely may at last welcome death with the same +instinctive readiness as, in the days of its strength, it shows for the +embraces of its mate. We are to be glutted by living to six score and +ten. We are to rise from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We +shall go to death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men +are to have a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their +prime, and their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a +period of ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and twenty or +thereabouts) and public service! + +(But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the +simple pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? Metchnikoff +never faces that question. And again, what of the man who is challenged +to die for right at the age of thirty? What does the prolongation +of life do for him? And where are the consolations for accidental +misfortune, for the tormenting disease or the lost limb?) + +But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure +religiosity. The prolongation of life gives place to sheer +self-sacrifice as the fundamental "remedy." And indeed what other remedy +has ever been conceived for the general evil of life? + + +"On the other hand," he writes, "the knowledge that the goal of human +life can be attained only by the development of a high degree of +solidarity amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere fact that +the enjoyment of life according to the precepts of Solomon (Ecelesiastes +ix. 7-10)* is opposed to the goal of human life, will lessen luxury and +the evil that comes from luxury. Conviction that science alone is able +to redress the disharmonies of the human constitution will lead directly +to the improvement of education and to the solidarity of mankind. + + * Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine + with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let + thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no + ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all + the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee + under the sun, all the days of thy vanity for that is thy + portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest + under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it + with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor + knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. + +"In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted +continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has +produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. In +the problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the gifts of +nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he has been able +to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must attempt to modify +his own constitution, so as to readjust its disharmonies. . . . + +"To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to frame +the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the resources of +science. + +"If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of religion +of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific principles. And +if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that man can live by faith +alone, the faith must be in the power of science." + + +Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of +"religion" and "philosophy" as remedies for human ills, is nothing less +than the fundamental proposition of the religious life translated into +terms of materialistic science, the proposition that damnation is really +over-individuation and that salvation is escape from self into the +larger being of life. . . . + +What can this "religion of the future" be but that devotion to the +racial adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already found, +like gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed away the +confusions and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an inquiry setting +out from a purely religious starting-point we have already reached +conclusions identical with this ultimate refuge of an extreme +materialist. + +This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our God--an +altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + + + +2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + + +Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness +and generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were the +statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a religious +writer would say--except that God is not named. Religious metaphors +abound. It is as if they accepted the living body of religion but denied +the bones that held it together--as they might deny the bones of a +friend. It is true, they would admit, the body moves in a way that +implies bones in its every movement, but--WE HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE +BONES. + +The disputes in theory--I do not say the difference in reality--between +the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic--becomes at times almost +as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to students of physics, +whether the scientific "ether" is real or a formula. Every material +phenomenon is consonant with and helps to define this ether, which +permeates and sustains and is all things, which nevertheless is +perceptible to no sense, which is reached only by an intellectual +process. Most minds are disposed to treat this ether as a reality. But +the acutely critical mind insists that what is only so attainable by +inference is not real; it is no more than "a formula that satisfies all +phenomena." + +But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that +satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + +Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to +believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly real, +from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy moral and +spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the other has as +yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God's will is so; the other +that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this or that; the other +the Good Will in me which I share with you and all well-disposed men, +moves me to do this or that. But the former makes an exterior reference +and escapes a risk of self-righteousness. + +I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called "The +Tyranny of Shams," in which he displays very typically this curious +tendency to a sort of religion with God "blacked out." His is an +extremely interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman +Catholic priest, and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a +resolution even sterner than Professor Metchnikoff's, to deny that +anything religious or divine can exist, that there can be any aim +in life except happiness, or any guide but "science." But--and here +immediately he turns east again--he is careful not to say "individual +happiness." And he says "Pleasure is, as Epicureans insisted, only +a part of a large ideal of happiness." So he lets the happiness of +devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens indefinite possibilities of +getting away from any merely materialistic rule of life. And he writes: + + +"In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and +indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their inertness. +Why, they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a thing as a duty to +improve the earth? What is the meaning or purpose of life? Or has it a +purpose? + +"One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece of +controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People tell you +that the conflict of science and religion--it would be better to say, +the conflict of modern culture and ancient traditions--has robbed life +of its plain significance. The men who, like Tolstoi, seriously urge +this point fail to appreciate the modern outlook on life. Certainly +modern culture--science, history, philosophy, and art--finds no purpose +in life: that is to say, no purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered +by man. A great chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine 'a +series of lucky accidents'--the chance blowing by the wind of certain +chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the first +appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the influences +which have lifted those early germs to the level of conscious beings as +a similar series of lucky accidents. + +"But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If there +is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the development +of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose its own purpose +and set up its own goal; and the most elementary sense of order will +teach us that this choice must be social, not merely individual. In +whatever measure ill-controlled individuals may yield to personal +impulses or attractions, the aim of the race must be a collective aim. I +do not mean an austere demand of self-sacrifice from the individual, +but an adjustment--as genial and generous as possible--of individual +variations for common good. Otherwise life becomes discordant and +futile, and the pain and waste react on each individual. So we raise +again, in the twentieth century, the old question of 'the greatest +good,' which men discussed in the Stoa Poikile and the suburban groves +of Athens, in the cool atria of patrician mansions on the Palatine and +the Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and the schools which Omar +Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of the Middle Ages and +the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici." + + +And again: + + +"The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring +happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above +all the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and philosophies, +which have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our steps toward that +height--just as the Athenians did two thousand years ago. It rests on +no metaphysic, no sacred legend, no disputable tradition--nothing that +scepticism can corrode or advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations +are the fundamental and unchanging impulses of our nature." + + +And again: + + +"The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our time +is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of +that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general +social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. +It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the +finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines +it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of +the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and injustice, +for these are elemental principles of social life; but it appeals +more confidently to the warmer sympathy which is linking the scattered +children of the race, and it urges all to co-operate in the restriction +of suffering and the creation of happiness. The advance guard of the +race, the men and women in whom mental alertness is associated with fine +feeling, cry that they have reached Pisgah's slope and in increasing +numbers men and women are pressing on to see if it be really the +Promised Land." + + +"Pisgah--the Promised Land!" Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as if he +were half-way to "Oh! Beulah Land!" and the tambourine. + +That "larger spirit," we maintain, is God; those "impulses" are the +power of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but to +realise fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the Catholic +Church, and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be lured +back to that altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from that +preoccupation, and immediately he will begin to realise the presence of +Divinity. + + + +3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + + +It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set themselves +to express the good will that is in them, do shape out God, that +if their conception of right living falls in so completely with the +conception of God's service as to be broadly identical, then indeed God, +like the ether of scientific speculation, is no more than a theory, no +more than an imaginative externalisation of man's inherent good will. +Why trouble about God then? Is not the declaration of a good disposition +a sufficient evidence of salvation? What is the difference between such +benevolent unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those +who have found God? + +The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone upon +his own good will, without a reference, without a standard, trusting +to his own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral strength. A +certain immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs like a precipice +above him; incalculable temptations open like gulfs beneath his feet. He +has not really given himself or got away from himself. He has no one to +whom he can give himself. He is still a masterless man. His exaltation +is self-centred, is priggishness, his fall is unrestrained by any +exterior obligation. His devotion is only the good will in himself, a +disposition; it is a mood that may change. At any moment it may change. +He may have pledged himself to his own pride and honour, but who will +hold him to his bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own +amiable sentiments, his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and +no one watches while he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. He +has no real and living link with other men of good will. + +And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely intellectual +are in no better case than those who deny God altogether. They may have +all the forms of truth and not divinity. The religion of the atheist +with a God-shaped blank at its heart and the persuasion of the +unconverted theologian, are both like lamps unlit. The lit lamp has no +difference in form from the lamp unlit. But the lit lamp is alive and +the lamp unlit is asleep or dead. + +The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the +servant of the true God is this; it is that the latter has experienced +a complete turning away from self. This only difference is all the +difference in the world. It is the realisation that this goodness that +I thought was within me and of myself and upon which I rather prided +myself, is without me and above myself, and infinitely greater and +stronger than I. It is the immortal and I am mortal. It is invincible +and steadfast in its purpose, and I am weak and insecure. It is no +longer that I, out of my inherent and remarkable goodness, out of +the excellence of my quality and the benevolence of my heart, give a +considerable amount of time and attention to the happiness and welfare +of others--because I choose to do so. On the contrary I have come under +a divine imperative, I am obeying an irresistible call, I am a humble +and willing servant of the righteousness of God. That altruism which +Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would have us regard as the goal +and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is really the first simple +commandment in the religious life. + + + +4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + + +Now here is a passage from a book, "Evolution and the War," by Professor +Metchnikoff's translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which comes even closer +to our conception of God as an immortal being arising out of man, and +external to the individual man. He has been discussing that well-known +passage of Kant's: "Two things fill my mind with ever-renewed wonder and +awe the more often and deeper I dwell on them--the starry vault above +me, and the moral law within me." + +From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this most +definite and interesting statement: + + +"Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the scalpel +and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as one who +dislikes all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not shrink from the +implications even of the phrase that thought is a secretion of the brain +as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert as a biological fact that +the moral law is as real and as external to man as the starry vault. It +has no secure seat in any single man or in any single nation. It is the +work of the blood and tears of long generations of men. It is not +in man, inborn or innate, but is enshrined in his traditions, in his +customs, in his literature and his religion. Its creation and sustenance +are the crowning glory of man, and his consciousness of it puts him in +a high place above the animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and +fall, but the struggle of individual lives and of individual nations +must be measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the +debasement or perfection of man's great achievement." + + +This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that this +book asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we call Him +"Man's Great Achievement" or "The Son of Man" or the "God of Mankind" or +"God." So far as the practical and moral ends of life are concerned, it +does not matter how we explain or refuse to explain His presence in our +lives. + +There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. Chalmers +Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is asserted that +GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of self-suppression to +our weakness. + + + +5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + + +Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture +upon Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the same +characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the forms of +denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious and resolute +Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its blindness to the +possibility of separating quite completely the idea of the Infinite +Being from the idea of God. It is another striking instance of that +obsession of modern minds by merely Christian theology of which I have +already complained. Professor Murray has quoted Mr. Bevan's phrase for +God, "the Friend behind phenomena," and he does not seem to realise that +that phrase carries with it no obligation whatever to believe that this +Friend is in control of the phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to +be in control as if it were a matter of course: + + +"We do seem to find," Professor Murray writes, "not only in all +religions, but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man is +not quite alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours towards +the good by some external help or sympathy. We find it everywhere in the +unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded self-revelations of the +most severe and conscientious Atheists. Now, the Stoics, like many other +schools of thought, drew an argument from this consensus of all mankind. +It was not an absolute proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, +but it was a strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive +belief in the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must +be a good cause for that belief. + +"This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But it +does not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the content of +the belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is precisely one of those +points on which Stoicism, in company with almost all philosophy up to +the present time, has gone astray through not sufficiently realising its +dependence on the human mind as a natural biological product. For it is +very important in this matter to realise that the so-called belief is +not really an intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole +nature. + +"It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to realise +the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is normally +unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men dreamed from +the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. Indeed, as I see +philosophy after philosophy falling into this unproven belief in the +Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I myself cannot, except for a +moment and by an effort, refrain from making the same assumption, it +seems to me that perhaps here too we are under the spell of a very old +ineradicable instinct. We are gregarious animals; our ancestors have +been such for countless ages. We cannot help looking out on the world as +gregarious animals do; we see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. +Students of animals under domestication have shown us how the habits +of a gregarious creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in +a thousand details by reference to the lost pack which is no longer +there--the pack which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time +he is out walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. +It is a strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the +gregarious animal for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may +be, it may very possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind +phenomena our own yearning and our own almost ineradicable instinctive +conviction, since they are certainly not founded on either reason or +observation, are in origin the groping of a lonely-souled gregarious +animal to find its herd or its herd-leader in the great spaces between +the stars. + +"At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of." + + +There the passage and the lecture end. + +I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the reality of +God. + +Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there existed +solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure individualists, +"atheists" so to speak, and as though this appeal to a life beyond one's +own was not the universal disposition of living things. His classical +training disposes him to a realistic exaggeration of individual +difference. But nearly every animal, and certainly every mentally +considerable animal, begins under parental care, in a nest or a litter, +mates to breed, and is associated for much of its life. Even the great +carnivores do not go alone except when they are old and have done with +the most of life. Every pack, every herd, begins at some point in a +couple, it is the equivalent of the tiger's litter if that were to +remain undispersed. And it is within the memory of men still living +that in many districts the African lion has with a change of game and +conditions lapsed from a "solitary" to a gregarious, that is to say a +prolonged family habit of life. + +Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher apes, +is an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has passed +within the historical period from a tribal gregariousness to a nearly +cosmopolitan tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. He is not, as +Professor Murray seems to suggest, a solitary LOST gregarious beast. Why +should his desire for God be regarded as the overflow of an unsatisfied +gregarious instinct, when he has home, town, society, companionship, +trade union, state, INCREASINGLY at hand to glut it? Why should +gregariousness drive a man to God rather than to the third-class +carriage and the public-house? Why should gregariousness drive men out +of crowded Egyptian cities into the cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer +in a memorable passage (about the hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is +flatly opposed to Professor Murray, and seems far more plausible when +he declares that the nature of man is insufficiently gregarious. The +parallel with the dog is not a valid one. + +Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the +Friend that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not the +real deception, our belief that we are completely individualised, and +is it not possible that this that Professor Murray calls "instinct" +is really not a vestige but a new thing arising out of our increasing +understanding, an intellectual penetration to that greater being of the +species, that vine, of which we are the branches? Why should not the +soul of the species, many faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like +our own? + +Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other cases +of atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate understanding +of individuation bars the way to at least the intellectual recognition +of the true God. + + + +6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + + +And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent +interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston's. You will note that while +in this book we use the word "God" to indicate the God of the Heart, +Sir Harry uses "God" for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, which we have +spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word "God" is of late +theological origin; the original identity of the words "good" and "god" +and all the stories of the gods are against him. But Sir Harry takes up +God only to define him away into incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + + +"We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, +assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, permeating +this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of millions of +planets, we do not know under what conditions and limitations It works. +We are quite entitled to assume that the end of such an influence is +intended to be order out of chaos, happiness and perfection out +of incompleteness and misery; and we are entitled to identify the +reactionary forces of brute Nature with the anthropomorphic Devil of +primitive religions, the power of darkness resisting the power of light. +But in these conjectures we must surely come to the conclusion that +the theoretical potency we call 'God' makes endless experiments, and +scrap-heaps the failures. Think of the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of +creative energy that went to their differentiation and their well-nigh +incredible physical development. . . . + +"To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and +perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may +seem little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, the +cutting, the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should feel as +little remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments as must the +Creative Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel for the DISJECTA +MEMBRA of perfected life on this planet. . . ." + + +But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God +of man as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of +humanitarianism. Sir Harry's ideas are much less thoroughly thought out +than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have quoted. On +that account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks as though Christ +were simply an eminent but ill-reported and abominably served teacher of +ethics--and yet of the only right ideal and ethics. He speaks as though +religions were nothing more than ethical movements, and as though +Christianity were merely someone remarking with a bright impulsiveness +that everything was simply horrid, and so, "Let us instal loving +kindness as a cardinal axiom." He ignores altogether the fundamental +essential of religion, which is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE +DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING MOTIVES OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE +IDENTIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. +He presents a conception of religion relieved of its "nonsense" as the +cheerful self-determination of a number of bright little individuals +(much stirred but by no means overcome by Cosmic Pity) to the Service +of Man. As he seems to present it, it is as outward a thing, it goes as +little into the intimacy of their lives, as though they had after proper +consideration agreed to send a subscription to a Red Cross Ambulance or +take part in a public demonstration against the Armenian Massacres, or +do any other rather nice-spirited exterior thing. This is what he says: + + +"I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to the +Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the Christian +ideal and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is silly and +disputable, and 'mattering not neither here nor there,' of Christian +theology--a theology virtually absent from the direct teaching of +Christ--and all of Judaistic literature or prescriptions not made +immortal in their application by unassailable truth and by the +confirmation of science. An excellent remedy for the nonsense which +still clings about religion may be found in two books: Cotter Monson's +'Service of Man,' which was published as long ago as 1887, and has since +been re-issued by the Rationalist Press Association in its well-known +sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton's 'Man and the Bible.' +Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of the relations +between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of +Man.'" + + +Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then makes a +well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help nor strength +in his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the "Service of Man" +is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an hypocrisy in the +undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE INVISIBLE KING + + +1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + + +The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince growing +in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his service and who +gives salvation from self and mortality only through self-abandonment to +his service, necessarily involves a demand for a complete revision and +fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + +God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and confusions +and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a dark jungle +to a great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a sword. It is plain +that he can admit no divided control of the world he claims. He concedes +nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy there are no human things that +are God's and others that are Caesar's. Those of the new thought cannot +render unto God the things that are God's, and to Caesar the things that +are Caesar's. Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men's lives and +direct their destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king +nor Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except +he claim as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his +claim. The steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place for +the sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims "divine right" plays with +the lightning. + +The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or +democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make plain +the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the discovery and +service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts of men, and the +performance of that will, not only in the private life of the believer +but in the acts and order of the state and nation of which he is a part. +I give myself to God not only because I am so and so but because I am +mankind. I become in a measure responsible for every evil in the world +of men. I become a knight in God's service. I become my brother's +keeper. I become a responsible minister of my King. I take sides against +injustice, disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, +princes, landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God's rule +and worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the +world's affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow-servants +of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast antagonism. + + + +2. THE WILL OF GOD + + +It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem most +arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will relate of +a close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, the aims +of his kingship. And just as they advance no proof whatever of the +existence of God but their realisation of him, so with regard to these +qualities and dispositions they have little argument but profound +conviction. What they say is this; that if you do not feel God then +there is no persuading you of him; we cannot win over the incredulous. +And what they say of his qualities is this; that if you feel God then +you will know, you will realise more and more clearly, that thus and +thus and no other is his method and intention. + +It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full +implications of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it asserted +that the first purpose of God is the attainment of clear knowledge, of +knowledge as a means to more knowledge, and of knowledge as a means to +power. For that he must use human eyes and hands and brains. + +And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only beginning +to apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as time goes on. But +it is possible to define the broad outlines of the attainment he seeks. +It is the conquest of death. + +It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the +individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an +undying purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to +threaten our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. God +fights against death in every form, against the great death of the +race, against the petty death of indolence, insufficiency, baseness, +misconception, and perversion. He it is and no other who can deliver us +"from the body of this death." This is the battle that grows plainer; +this is the purpose to which he calls us out of the animal's round of +eating, drinking, lusting, quarrelling and laughing and weeping, fearing +and failing, and presently of wearying and dying, which is the +whole life that living without God can give us. And from these great +propositions there follow many very definite maxims and rules of life +for those who serve God. These we will immediately consider. + + + +3. THE CRUCIFIX + + +But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind +of intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and the +vaguer sort of Christianity. There are a number of people closely in +touch with those who have found the new religion who, biased probably +by a dread of too complete a break with Christianity, have adopted a +theogony which is very reminiscent of Gnosticism and of the Paulician, +Catharist, and kindred sects to which allusion has already been made. +He, who is called in this book God, they would call God-the-Son or +Christ, or the Logos; and what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled +Being, they would call God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as +Life, they would call, with a certain disregard of the poor brutes that +perish, Man. And they would assert, what we of the new belief, pleading +our profound ignorance, would neither assert nor deny, that that +Darkness, out of which came Life and God, since it produced them must be +ultimately sympathetic and of like nature with them. And that ultimately +Man, being redeemed and led by Christ and saved from death by him, would +be reconciled with God the Father.* And this great adventurer out of the +hearts of man that we here call God, they would present as the same with +that teacher from Galilee who was crucified at Jerusalem. + + * This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for + him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and + chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the + blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is + an escape from the "inadequate" ideas of the mortal human + personality to the "adequate" and timeless ideas of God. + +Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon this +apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. Firstly, +we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the veiled being nor +about that being's relations to God and to Life. We do not recognise any +consistent sympathetic possibilities between these outer beings and our +God. Our God is, we feel, like Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And +the accepted figure of Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in +the tone of our worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, +but by fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the +thing that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he +cannot escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross +or chained to be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary +sufferings, like hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in +themselves bring victory. They may be necessary, but they are not +glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain-drenched +figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, "My God, my God, why +hast thou forsaken me?" these things jar with our spirit. We little men +may well fail and repent, but it is our faith that our God does not fail +us nor himself. We cannot accept the Christian's crucifix, or pray to +a pitiful God. We cannot accept the Resurrection as though it were an +after-thought to a bitterly felt death. Our crucifix, if you must have +a crucifix, would show God with a hand or a foot already torn away from +its nail, and with eyes not downcast but resolute against the sky; a +face without pain, pain lost and forgotten in the surpassing glory of +the struggle and the inflexible will to live and prevail. . . . + +But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible the +wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is courage +beyond any conceivable suffering. + +But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns the +figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the figure of +God, and the crucifix only so far as that stands for divine action. The +figure of Christ crucified, so soon as we think of it as being no +more than the tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man who proclaimed the +loving-kindness of God and the supremacy of God's kingdom over +the individual life, and who, in the extreme agony of his pain and +exhaustion, cried out that he was deserted, becomes something altogether +distinct from a theological symbol. Immediately that we cease to +worship, we can begin to love and pity. Here was a being of extreme +gentleness and delicacy and of great courage, of the utmost tolerance +and the subtlest sympathy, a saint of non-resistance. . . . + +We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We are +the militant followers of and participators in a militant God. We can +appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle being upon +whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is the remotest +quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is the completest +inversion of his likeness as we know him. A Christianity which shows, +for its daily symbol, Christ risen and trampling victoriously upon a +broken cross, would be far more in the spirit of our worship.* + + * It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a + letter written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that + pertinacious correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, + almost exactly the same sentiments I have here expressed. + "If I could fill the Crucifix with life as you do," he says, + "I would gladly look on it, but the fallen Head and the + closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of glorified + humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who 'hath + been crucified,' who hath passed the trial victoriously and + borne the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this + side of the glory." + +I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit +in a tract, "The Call of the Kingdom," by that very able and subtle, +Anglican theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the +vitalising stresses of the war we are winning "faith in Christ as an +heroic leader. We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle that +there is no ground in our picture of Him, for the vision which His +disciple had of Him: 'His head and His hair were white, as white wool, +white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire: and His feet like +unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and His +voice was as the voice of many waters. And He had in His right hand +seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword; and +His countenance was as the sun shineth in its strength.'" + +These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how +clearly parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + + + +4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + + +Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite +intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of growth +and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands close to +our inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue us from the +chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal adventure, that we +who have realised him and given ourselves joyfully to him, must needs be +equally ready and willing to give our energies to the task we share +with him, to do our utmost to increase knowledge, to increase order and +clearness, to fight against indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, +and every form of his and our enemy, death, first and chiefest in +ourselves but also in all mankind, and to bring about the establishment +of his real and visible kingdom throughout the world. + +And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means not +merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the world, but +that the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the whole fabric +of the world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the teaching at the +village school, in the planning of the railway siding of the market +town, in the mixing of the mortar at the building of the workman's +house. It means that ultimately no effigy of intrusive king or emperor +is to disfigure our coins and stamps any more; God himself and no +delegate is to be represented wherever men buy or sell, on our letters +and our receipts, a perpetual witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no +act altogether without significance, no power so humble that it may not +be used for or against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To +realise God in one's heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, +and the way of his service is neither to pull up one's life by the +roots nor to continue it in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it +about, to turn everything that there is in it round into his way. + +The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the +abilities they possess and the positions in which they find themselves, +but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a constant attempt +to be utterly truthful with oneself, a constant sedulousness to +keep oneself fit and bright for God's service, and to increase one's +knowledge and powers, and a hidden persistent watchfulness of one's +baser motives, a watch against fear and indolence, against vanity, +against greed and lust, against envy, malice, and uncharitableness. To +have found God truly does in itself make God's service one's essential +motive, but these evils lurk in the shadows, in the lassitudes and +unwary moments. No one escapes them altogether, there is no need for +tragic moods on account of imperfections. We can no more serve God +without blunders and set-backs than we can win battles without losing +men. But the less of such loss the better. The servant of God must keep +his mind as wide and sound and his motives as clean as he can, just as +an operating surgeon must keep his nerves and muscles as fit and his +hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously evade exercise and +regular washing--of mind as of hands. An incessant watchfulness of +one's self and one's thoughts and the soundness of one's thoughts; +cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and prejudice, +careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast work; these are +the daily fundamental duties that every one who truly comes to God will, +as a matter of course, set before himself. + + + +5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + + +Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will be +more convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present pursue +the idea of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment he calls +us. This kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all +mankind upon certain divine ends. These, we conceive, are first, +the maintenance of the racial life; secondly, the exploration of the +external being of nature as it is and as it has been, that is to +say history and science; thirdly, that exploration of inherent human +possibility which is art; fourthly, that clarification of thought and +knowledge which is philosophy; and finally, the progressive enlargement +and development of the racial life under these lights, so that God may +work through a continually better body of humanity and through better +and better equipped minds, that he and our race may increase for ever, +working unendingly upon the development of the powers of life and the +mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout the deeps of space. He +sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer ourselves and our world +and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can as yet see nothing, our +imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of our understanding is +the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from us. . . . + +It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a quality +that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether hidden. . . . + +But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of +this earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives must +fall and our consciences adapt themselves. + +Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost necessarily a +conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. Each believer as he +grasps this natural and immediate consequence of the faith that has come +into his life will form at the same time a Utopian conception of this +world changed in the direction of God's purpose. The vision will follow +the realisation of God's true nature and purpose as a necessary +second step. And he will begin to develop the latent citizen of this +world-state in himself. He will fall in with the idea of the world-wide +sanities of this new order being drawn over the warring outlines of the +present, and of men falling out of relationship with the old order and +into relationship with the new. Many men and women are already working +to-day at tasks that belong essentially to God's kingdom, tasks that +would be of the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; +for example, they are doing or sustaining scientific research or +education or creative art; they are making roads to bring men together, +they are doctors working for the world's health, they are building +homes, they are constructing machinery to save and increase the powers +of men. . . . + +Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will +change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a little +while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come in chiefly +from the west, to become open and confessed servants of God. This work +that they were doing for ambition, or the love of men or the love of +knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to the work itself, or for +money or honour or country or king, they will realise they are doing for +God and by the power of God. Self-transformation into a citizen of God's +kingdom and a new realisation of all earthly politics as no more than +the struggle to define and achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, +follow on, without any need for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the +moment when God and the believer meet and clasp one another. + +This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely +fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such general +theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. But to anyone +who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a little from the +obsession of existing but transitory things, it ceases to be a mere +suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly the real future of +mankind. From the phase of "so things should be," the mind will pass +very rapidly to the realisation that "so things will be." Towards this +the directive wills among men have been drifting more and more steadily +and perceptibly and with fewer eddyings and retardations, for many +centuries. The purpose of mankind will not be always thus confused and +fragmentary. This dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the +warring tribes and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries +or so ago, draws to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a +metaphor, not a mere spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain +project; it is the thing before us, it is the close and inevitable +destiny of mankind. + +In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading about +the world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears here and +there to-day, like that little twittering of birds which comes before +the dawn, will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In but a few +centuries the whole world will be openly, confessedly, preparing for +the kingdom. In but a few centuries God will have led us out of the dark +forest of these present wars and confusions into the open brotherhood of +his rule. + + + +6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + + +This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation at +thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, partisan, +nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into the coherent +development of the world kingdom of God, provides the form into which +everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will naturally seek to fit +his every thought and activity. The material greeds, the avarice, +fear, rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a disordered world will be +challenged and examined under one general question: "What am I in the +kingdom of God?" + +It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing number +of occupations that belong already to God's kingdom, research, teaching, +creative art, creative administration, cultivation, construction, +maintenance, and the honest satisfaction of honest practical human +needs. For such people conversion to the intimacy of God means at most +a change in the spirit of their work, a refreshed energy, a clearer +understanding, a new zeal, a completer disregard of gains and praises +and promotion. Pay, honours, and the like cease to be the inducement of +effort. Service, and service alone, is the criterion that the quickened +conscience will recognise. + +Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which service +is mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service is a little +warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by mercenary and +commercial considerations, by some inherent or special degradation of +purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer rest until his life +is readjusted and as far as possible freed from the waste of these base +diversions. For example a scientific investigator, lit and inspired by +great inquiries, may be hampered by the conditions of his professorship +or research fellowship, which exact an appearance of "practical" +results. Or he may be obliged to lecture or conduct classes. He may +be able to give but half his possible gift to the work of his real +aptitude, and that at a sacrifice of money and reputation among +short-sighted but influential contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature +an investigator he will know that the research is what God needs of him. +He cannot continue it at all if he leaves his position, and so he must +needs waste something of his gift to save the rest. But should a poorer +or a humbler post offer him better opportunity, there lies his work for +God. There one has a very common and simple type of the problems that +will arise in the lives of men when they are lit by sudden realisation +of the immediacy of God. + +Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician between +the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one hand, and +the lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy people on the +other. He belongs to a profession that is crippled by a mediaeval code, +a profession which was blind to the common interest of the Public Health +and regarded its members merely as skilled practitioners employed to +"cure" individual ailments. Very slowly and tortuously do the methods of +the profession adapt themselves to the modern conception of an army of +devoted men working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as +a whole, broadening out from the frowsy den of the "leech," with its +crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled and +illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and housing +and economic life of the community. + +And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble of +the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and his +divine impulse on the other. + +The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every decision +that must be made by men and women in these more or less vitiated, but +still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + +The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a man +who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business enterprise +or the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need of manufactures +and that goods should be distributed; land must be administered and +new economic possibilities developed. The drift of things is in the +direction of state ownership and control, but in a great number of +cases the state is not ripe for such undertakings, it commands neither +sufficient integrity nor sufficient ability, and the proprietor of +factory, store, credit or land, must continue in possession, holding as +a trustee for God and, so far as lies in his power, preparing for his +supersession by some more public administration. Modern religion admits +of no facile flights from responsibility. It permits no headlong resort +to the wilderness and sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts +among scorpions in a cave as no better than a deserter in hiding. It +unhesitatingly forbids any rich young man to sell all that he has and +give to the poor. Himself and all that he has must be alike dedicated to +God. + +The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and of +every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes aware of +God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the maximum of +possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the least private +profit. He may set aside a salary for his maintenance; the rest he must +deal with like a zealous public official. And if he perceives that the +affair could be better administered by other hands than his own, then it +is his business to get it into those hands with the smallest delay and +the least profit to himself. . . . + +The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right and +wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has a +RIGHT to his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man is not +justified in drawing the profits from an advantageous agreement nor free +to spend the profits of a speculation as he will. God takes no heed of +savings nor of abstinence. He recognises no right to the "rewards of +abstinence," no right to any rewards. Those profits and comforts and +consolations are the inducements that dangle before the eyes of the +spiritually blind. Wealth is an embarrassment to the religious, for God +calls them to account for it. The servant of God has no business with +wealth or power except to use them immediately in the service of God. +Finding these things in his hands he is bound to administer them in the +service of God. + +The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged communism +of the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the scribes and +Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and bones and house and +acres, he takes skill and influence and expectations. For all the rest +of your life you are nothing but God's agent. If you are not prepared +for so complete a surrender, then you are infinitely remote from God. +You must go your way. Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps +you have been desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as +a possession. You have not begun to understand. This that we are +discussing in this book is as yet nothing for you. + + + +7. ADJUSTING LIFE + + +This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this +present world and the discovery and realisation of one's own place and +work in and for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase in the +development of the believer. He will set about revising and adjusting +his scheme of life, his ways of living, his habits and his relationships +in the light of his new convictions. + +Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain +righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap +only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the mind +that have brought them to God will already have brought their lives into +a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet occasionally there +will be someone to whom the self-examination that follows conversion +will reveal an entirely wrong and evil way of living. It may be that the +light has come to some rich idler doing nothing but follow a pleasurable +routine. Or to someone following some highly profitable and amusing, +but socially useless or socially mischievous occupation. One may be an +advocate at the disposal of any man's purpose, or an actor or actress +ready to fall in with any theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may +find herself a prostitute or a pet wife, a mere kept instrument of +indulgence. These are lives of prey, these are lives of futility; the +light of God will not tolerate such lives. Here religion can bring +nothing but a severance from the old way of life altogether, a break and +a struggle towards use and service and dignity. + +But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong +the new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the old. +Every sort of experience that has ever come to a human being is in the +self that he brings to God, and there is no reason why a knowledge +of evil ways should not determine the path of duty. No one can better +devise protections against vices than those who have practised them; +none know temptations better than those who have fallen. If a man has +followed an evil trade, it becomes him to use his knowledge of the +tricks of that trade to help end it. He knows the charities it may claim +and the remedies it needs. . . . + +A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of +adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under +contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the opportunity +for examining the relation of an ordinary self-respecting worldly life, +to life under the dispensation of God discovered. A barrister is +usually a man of some energy and ambition, his honour is moulded by +the traditions of an ancient and antiquated profession, instinctively +self-preserving and yet with a real desire for consistency and respect. +As a profession it has been greedy and defensively conservative, but it +has never been shameless nor has it ever broken faith with its own large +and selfish, but quite definite, propositions. It has never for instance +had the shamelessness of such a traditionless and undisciplined class +as the early factory organisers. It has never had the dull incoherent +wickedness of the sort of men who exploit drunkenness and the turf. It +offends within limits. Barristers can be, and are, disbarred. But it is +now a profession extraordinarily out of date; its code of honour derives +from a time of cruder and lower conceptions of human relationship. It +apprehends the State as a mere "ring" kept about private disputations; +it has not begun to move towards the modern conception of the collective +enterprise as the determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its +business as a mere play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or +between men and men. They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer +wrongs, they evade dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and +compensations. The primary business of the law is held to be decision in +these wrangles, and as wrangling is subject to artistic elaboration, the +business of the barrister is the business of a professional wrangler; he +is a bravo in wig and gown who fights the duels of ordinary men because +they are incapable, very largely on account of the complexities of legal +procedure, of fighting for themselves. His business is never to explore +any fundamental right in the matter. His business is to say all that can +be said for his client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said +against his client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain +and the United States of America is the judge, and whose habits and +interests all incline him to disregard the realities of the case in +favour of the points in the forensic game, then adjudicates upon the +contest. . . . + +Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern +conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the world is +openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court will exist only +to adjust the differing views of men as to the manner of their service +to God; the only right of action one man will have against another will +be that he has been prevented or hampered or distressed by the other in +serving God. The idea of the law court will have changed entirely from a +place of dispute, exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The +individual or some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON +GOOD either against some state official or state regulation, or against +the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only sort of +legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the new faith. +. . . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far as it is not +otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the methods and +administration of the law. That this was not the case with Christianity +is one of the many contributory aspects that lead one to the conviction +that it was not Christianity that took possession of the Roman empire, +but an imperial adventurer who took possession of an all too complaisant +Christianity. + +Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the religious +from which they arose, it will have become evident that the essential +work of anyone who is conversant with the existing practice and +literature of the law and whose natural abilities are forensic, will lie +in the direction of reconstructing the theory and practice of the law +in harmony with modern conceptions, of making that theory and practice +clear and plain to ordinary men, of reforming the abuses of the +profession by working for the separation of bar and judiciary, for the +amalgamation of the solicitors and the barristers, and the like needed +reforms. These are matters that will probably only be properly set right +by a quickening of conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of +men is the help and service so necessary to the practical establishment +of God's kingdom, as of men learned and experienced in the law. And +there is no reason why for the present an advocate should not continue +to plead in the courts, provided he does his utmost only to handle cases +in which he believes he can serve the right. Few righteous cases are +ill-served by a frank disposition on the part of lawyer and client +to put everything before the court. Thereby of course there arises a +difficult case of conscience. What if a lawyer, believing his client to +be in the right, discovers him to be in the wrong? He cannot throw up +the case unless he has been scandalously deceived, because so he would +betray the confidence his client has put in him to "see him through." He +has a right to "give himself away," but not to "give away" his client +in this fashion. If he has a chance of a private consultation I think he +ought to do his best to make his client admit the truth of the case and +give in, but failing this he has no right to be virtuous on behalf of +another. No man may play God to another; he may remonstrate, but that +is the limit of his right. He must respect a confidence, even if it is +purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that here the barrister is in a +cleft stick, and that he must see the business through according to the +confidence his client has put in him--and afterwards be as sorry as he +may be if an injustice ensues. And also I would suggest a lawyer +may with a fairly good conscience defend a guilty man as if he were +innocent, to save him from unjustly heavy penalties. . . . + +This comparatively full discussion of the barrister's problem has been +embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical fashion, +just those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in real life. +Religious conviction gives us a general direction, but it stands aside +from many of these entangled struggles in the jungle of conscience. +Practice is often easier than a rule. In practice a lawyer will know +far more accurately than a hypothetical case can indicate, how far he is +bound to see his client through, and how far he may play the keeper of +his client's conscience. And nearly every day there happens instances +where the most subtle casuistry will fail and the finger of conscience +point unhesitatingly. One may have worried long in the preparation and +preliminaries of the issue, one may bring the case at last into the +final court of conscience in an apparently hopeless tangle. Then +suddenly comes decision. + +The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man states +his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and the special +pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case lies bare and +plain. + + + +8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + + +The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in existing +governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with the +acceptance of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At the +worst Caesar is a usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at the +best he is provisional. Modern casuistry makes no great trouble for the +believing public official. The chief business of any believer is to do +the work for which he is best fitted, and since all state affairs are +to become the affairs of God's kingdom it is of primary importance that +they should come into the hands of God's servants. It is scarcely less +necessary to a believing man with administrative gifts that he should be +in the public administration, than that he should breathe and eat. And +whatever oath or the like to usurper church or usurper king has been +set up to bar access to service, is an oath imposed under duress. If it +cannot be avoided it must be taken rather than that a man should become +unserviceable. All such oaths are unfair and foolish things. They +exclude no scoundrels; they are appeals to superstition. Whenever an +opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, the servant of God will +seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he will take it. + +The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of +statement; it is to do as much as one can of God's work. + + + +9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + + +It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official and +his oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged minister of +religion who finds that faith in the true God has ousted his formal +beliefs. + +This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the intellectual +life of the last hundred years. It has been increasingly difficult for +any class of reading, talking, and discussing people such as are the +bulk of the priesthoods of the Christian churches to escape hearing and +reading the accumulated criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the +popularly accepted story of man's fall and salvation. Some have no doubt +defeated this universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and +honestly established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the +articles and disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the +creeds they profess and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their +positions in the priesthood. But a great number have neither resisted +the bacillus of criticism nor left the churches to which they are +attached. They have adopted compromises, they have qualified their +creeds with modifying footnotes of essential repudiation; they +have decided that plain statements are metaphors and have undercut, +transposed, and inverted the most vital points of the vulgarly accepted +beliefs. One may find within the Anglican communion, Arians, Unitarians, +Atheists, disbelievers in immortality, attenuators of miracles; there +is scarcely a doubt or a cavil that has not found a lodgment within the +ample charity of the English Establishment. I have been interested to +hear one distinguished Canon deplore that "they" did not identify the +Logos with the third instead of the second Person of the Trinity, and +another distinguished Catholic apologist declare his indifference to +the "historical Jesus." Within most of the Christian communions one may +believe anything or nothing, provided only that one does not call too +public an attention to one's eccentricity. The late Rev. Charles Voysey, +for example, preached plainly in his church at Healaugh against the +divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only when he published his +sermons under the provocative title of "The Sling and the Stone," and +caused an outcry beyond the limits of his congregation, that he was +indicted and deprived. + +Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or priesthood in +which they find themselves are often very plausible. It is probable that +in very few cases is the retention of stipend or incumbency a conscious +dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by thought for wife or child. +It has only been during very exceptional phases of religious development +and controversy that beliefs have been really sharp. A creed, like a +coin, it may be argued, loses little in practical value because it is +worn, or bears the image of a vanished king. The religious life is a +reality that has clothed itself in many garments, and the concern of +the priest or minister is with the religious life and not with the poor +symbols that may indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact +no more than indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain +that the church and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of +religion, that the religious life is sustained not by its propositions +but by its routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate discussion of +spiritual things with professional divines, will find this is the +substance of the case for the ecclesiastical sceptic. His church, he +will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where else is truth? +What better formulae are to be found for ineffable things? And +meanwhile--he does good. + +That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who profess +the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that religion is a +matter of ineffable things. The way of God is plain and simple and easy +to understand. + +Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. If +a professional religious has any justification at all for his +professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and +greatness of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are not +proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion of what +should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a priest pretend +to do when his primary business is the truth and his method a lie? The +oaths and incidental conformities of men who wish to serve God in the +state are on a different footing altogether from the falsehood and +mischief of one who knows the true God and yet recites to a trustful +congregation, foists upon a trustful congregation, a misleading and +ill-phrased Levantine creed. + +Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of his +temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every ordained +priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that he has truly +realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to repeat his creed +again. His course seems plain and clear. It becomes him to stand up +before the flock he has led in error, and to proclaim the being and +nature of the one true God. He must be explicit to the utmost of his +powers. Then he may await his expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is +sufficient for him to go away silently, making false excuses or none at +all for his retreat. He has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of +his conforming years. + + + +10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + + +Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from God? + +This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it +reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious +interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and the +Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion sweeps past +and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans and Methodists, +in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of God. Arminians seem +merely to have insisted that God has conditioned himself, and by his +own free act left men free to accept or reject salvation. To the realist +type of mind--here as always I use "realist" in its proper sense as +the opposite of nominalist--to the old-fashioned, over-exact and +over-accentuating type of mind, such ways of thinking seem vague +and unsatisfying. Just as it distresses the more downright kind of +intelligence with a feeling of disloyalty to admit that God is not +Almighty, so it troubles the same sort of intelligence to hear that +there is no clear line to be drawn between the saved and the lost. +Realists like an exclusive flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a +natural weakness of humanity to be forced into extreme positions by +argument. It is probable, as I have already suggested, that the absolute +attributes of God were forced upon Christianity under the stresses +of propaganda, and it is probable that the theory of a super-human +obstinancy beyond salvation arose out of the irritations natural to +theological debate. It is but a step from the realisation that there are +people absolutely unable or absolutely unwilling to see God as we see +him, to the conviction that they are therefore shut off from God by an +invincible soul blindness. + +It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + +Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there are +those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our experience. +They are people answering to the "hard-hearted," to the "stiff-necked +generation" of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and even confess +to standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They show themselves +incapable of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty or truth or +goodness. They are altogether remote from intelligent sacrifice. To +every test they betray vileness of texture; they are mean, cold, wicked. +There are people who seem to cheat with a private self-approval, who are +ever ready to do harsh and cruel things, whose use for social feeling +is the malignant boycott, and for prosperity, monopolisation and +humiliating display; who seize upon religion and turn it into +persecution, and upon beauty to torment it on the altars of some joyless +vice. We cannot do with such souls; we have no use for them, and it is +very easy indeed to step from that persuasion to the belief that God has +no use for them. + +And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the people +with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the few broad +and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we experience, who +lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful conceptions of God, +and are apparently quite incapable of distinguishing between what is +practically and what is spiritually good. + +It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way to +God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which we +of course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper or the +pickpocket or the "smart" woman or the loan-monger or the village +oaf than he is of the swine in the sty. But are we justified in +thus limiting God to the measure of our moral and intellectual +understandings? Because some people seem to me steadfastly and +consistently base or hopelessly and incurably dull and confused, does +it follow that there are not phases, albeit I have never chanced to see +them, of exaltation in the one case and illumination in the other? And +may I not be a little restricting my perception of Good? While I have +been ready enough to pronounce this or that person as being, so far as +I was concerned, thoroughly damnable or utterly dull, I find a curious +reluctance to admit the general proposition which is necessary for +these instances. It is possible that the difference between Arminian and +Calvinist is a difference of essential intellectual temperament rather +than of theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally Arminian as I am +temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the nature of God +to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can only suspect, +and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + +Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you think, +as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and damned, then +I cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other people can be damned. +But that is not to believe that there are people damned at the outset by +their moral and intellectual insufficiency; that is not to make out that +there is a class of essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The +religious life preceded clear religious understanding and extends far +beyond its range. + +In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to true +belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. The +essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. I am +passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own mind, and +to make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and particularly +to other people who may seem to be feeling with me; I do perceive that +error is evil if only because a faith based on confused conceptions +and partial understandings may suffer irreparable injury through the +collapse of its substratum of ideas. I doubt if faith can be complete +and enduring if it is not secured by the definite knowledge of the true +God. Yet I have also to admit that I find the form of my own religious +emotion paralleled by people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy +and no agreement in phrase or formula at all. + +There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling and +this discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as myself +and a convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself in phrases +and images of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs and fountains of +precious blood, a most repulsive and incomprehensible idiom to me, and +expressing itself by shouts, clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and +rhythmic pacings that stun and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object +sought, release from self, and the same end, the end of identification +with the immortal, successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. +I see God indubitably present in these excitements, and I see +personalities I could easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for +spiritual understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. +One may be led into the absurdest underestimates of religious +possibilities if one estimates people only coldly and in the light of +everyday life. There is a sub-intellectual religious life which, very +conceivably, when its utmost range can be examined, excludes nothing +human from religious cooperation, which will use any words to its tune, +which takes its phrasing ready-made from the world about it, as it takes +the street for its temple, and yet which may be at its inner point in +the directest contact with God. Religion may suffer from aphasia and +still be religion; it may utter misleading or nonsensical words and yet +intend and convey the truth. The methods of the Salvation Army are older +than doctrinal Christianity, and may long survive it. Men and women may +still chant of Beulah Land and cry out in the ecstasy of salvation; the +tambourine, that modern revival of the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, +may still stir dull nerves to a first apprehension of powers and a call +beyond the immediate material compulsion of life, when the creeds of +Christianity are as dead as the lore of the Druids. + +The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies may +be accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release among types +and strata that by the standards of a trained and explicit intellectual, +may seem spiritually hopeless. It is not necessary to imagine the whole +world critical and lucid in order to imagine the whole world unified in +religious sentiment, comprehending the same phrases and coming together +regardless of class and race and quality, in the worship and service +of the true God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than +hieratic tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head +grows clear the body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of +men modern religion says, "This is the God it has always been in your +nature to apprehend." + + + +11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + + +Now that we are discussing the general question of individual conduct, +it will be convenient to take up again and restate in that relationship, +propositions already made very plainly in the second and third chapters. +Here there are several excellent reasons for a certain amount of +deliberate repetition. . . . + +All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with +religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a part +in most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern faith. Let +us be as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned by the health and +fitness and vigour of his servants; we owe him our best and utmost; but +he has no special concern and no special preferences or commandments +regarding sexual things. + +Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he +welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in +adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand between +him and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity of the creeds, +in this as in so many respects, does not rise to the level of its +founder, and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as though the name +of Christ had not been ascendant for nineteen centuries, that sex is +a secondary thing to religion, and sexual status of no account in +the presence of God. It follows quite logically that God does not +discriminate between man and woman in any essential things. We leave our +individuality behind us when we come into the presence of God. Sex is +not disavowed but forgotten. Just as one's last meal is forgotten--which +also is a difference between the religious moment of modern faith and +certain Christian sacraments. You are a believer and God is at hand +to you; heed not your state; reach out to him and he is there. In the +moment of religion you are human; it matters not what else you are, +male or female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or Gentile, bond or free. It +is AFTER the moment of religion that we become concerned about our state +and the manner in which we use ourselves. + +We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual +treatment of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the +king of the whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and all +things. He is not particularly concerned about any aspect, because he is +concerned about every aspect. We have to make the best use of ourselves +for his kingdom; that is our rule of life. That rule means neither +painful nor frantic abstinences nor any forced way of living. Purity, +cleanliness, health, none of these things are for themselves, they are +for use; none are magic, all are means. The sword must be sharp and +clean. That does not mean that we are perpetually to sharpen and clean +it--which would weaken and waste the blade. The sword must neither be +drawn constantly nor always rusting in its sheath. Those who have had +the wits and soul to come to God, will have the wits and soul to find +out and know what is waste, what is vanity, what is the happiness that +begets strength of body and spirit, what is error, where vice begins, +and to avoid and repent and recoil from all those things that degrade. +These are matters not of the rule of life but of the application +of life. They must neither be neglected nor made disproportionally +important. + +To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. It +is difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends can +be very fine and close and good unless the two who love are each also +linked to God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and +the changes of years they can be held steadfast by his undying +steadfastness. But it has been felt by many deep-feeling people that +there is so much kindred between the love and trust of husband and wife +and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to consider the +former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that close love of mated +man and woman, they are so intent upon its permanence and completeness +and to lift the dear relationship out of the ruck of casual and +transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it were, into the very +presence and assent of God. There are many who dream and desire that +they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more who would +fain be so, and some who are. And from this comes the earnest desire to +make marriage sacramental and the attempt to impose upon all the world +the outward appearance, the restrictions, the pretence at least of such +a sacramental union. + +There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only +after years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by +vows and promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body and +spirit; and it concerns only the two who can dare to say they have it, +and God. And the divine thing in marriage, the thing that is most like +the love of God, is, even then, not the relationship of the man and +woman as man and woman but the comradeship and trust and mutual help +and pity that joins them. No doubt that from the mutual necessities of +bodily love and the common adventure, the necessary honesties and helps +of a joint life, there springs the stoutest, nearest, most enduring and +best of human companionship; perhaps only upon that root can the best of +mortal comradeship be got; but it does not follow that the mere ordinary +coming together and pairing off of men and women is in itself divine or +sacramental or anything of the sort. Being in love is a condition that +may have its moments of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part +an experience far down the scale below divine experience; it is often +love only in so far as it shares the name with better things; it is +greed, it is admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, +it is the instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is +adventure, it is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores 'lovers' +meet and part. Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of God in +themselves or others. + +Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no reason +why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness should be +made an obligation upon all men and women who are attracted by one +another, nor why it should be woven into the essentials of religion. +For women much more than for men is this confusion dangerous, lest a +personal love should shape and dominate their lives instead of God. "He +for God only; she for God in him," phrases the idea of Milton and of +ancient Islam; it is the formula of sexual infatuation, a formula quite +easily inverted, as the end of Goethe's Faust ("The woman soul leadeth +us upward and on") may witness. The whole drift of modern religious +feeling is against this exaggeration of sexual feeling, these moods of +sexual slavishness, in spiritual things. Between the healthy love +of ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of God, there is +an essential contrast and opposition in this, that preference, +exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of the former +and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is the +intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the +latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It +may be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest +unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and +romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they +have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved +for God and a devotion that is normally evoked only by little children +in their mother's heart. It is not the way between most of the men and +women one meets in this world. + +But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is nothing +else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + + + +1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + + +If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain and +read Metchnikoff's "Nature of Man," he will find there an interesting +summary of the biological facts that bear upon and destroy the delusion +that there is such a thing as individual perfection, that there is even +ideal perfection for humanity. With an abundance of convincing +instances Professor Metchnikoff demonstrates that life is a system of +"disharmonies," capable of no perfect way, that there is no "perfect" +dieting, no "perfect" sexual life, no "perfect" happiness, no "perfect" +conduct. He releases one from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption +that there is even an ideal "perfection" in organic life. He sweeps out +of the mind with all the confidence and conviction of a physiological +specialist, any idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable +perfect man. It is in the nature of every man to fall short at every +point from perfection. From the biological point of view we are as +individuals a series of involuntary "tries" on the part of an imperfect +species towards an unknown end. + +Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. +We are disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to the +defects of our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our teeth or +to those vestigial structures of our body that endanger our physical +welfare. Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds not an inch +to our spiritual and moral stature. + + + +2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + + +Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by the +term "damnation," in the light of this view of human reality. Most of +the great world religions are as clear as Professor Metchnikoff that +life in the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and in most cases they +supply a more or less myth-like explanation, they declare that evil is +one side of the conflict between Ahriman and Ormazd, or that it is the +punishment of an act of disobedience, of the fall of man and world alike +from a state of harmony. Their case, like his, is that THIS world is +damned. + +We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this +world there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after death, +so nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear to be +an exploit of theory; they have a superadded appearance even in the +Christian system; the same common tendency to superlatives and absolutes +that makes men ashamed to admit that God is finite, makes them seek to +enhance the merits of their Saviour by the device of everlasting fire. +Conquest over the sorrow of life and the fear of death do not seem to +them sufficient for Christ's glory. + +Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the +universe as something derived deductively from the past to a conception +of it as something gathering itself adventurously towards the future, +involves a release from the supposed necessity to tell a story and +explain why. Instead comes the inquiry, "To what end?" We can say +without mental discomfort, these disharmonies are here, this damnation +is here--inexplicably. We can, without any distressful inquiry into +ultimate origins, bring our minds to the conception of a spontaneous and +developing God arising out of those stresses in our hearts and in the +universe, and arising to overcome them. Salvation for the individual +is escape from the individual distress at disharmony and the individual +defeat by death, into the Kingdom of God. And damnation can be nothing +more and nothing less than the failure or inability or disinclination to +make that escape. + +Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for salvation +has crept at a number of points into contemporary religious thought. It +was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the damned go to their own hells +of their own accord. It underlies a queer poem, "Simpson," by that +interesting essayist upon modern Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which +I have recently read. Simpson dies and goes to hell--it is rather like +the Cromwell Road--and approves of it very highly, and then and then +only is he completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is +certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock's idea. It is his definition +of damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is damnation. It is +surrender to limitation; it is acquiescence in "disharmony"; it is +making peace with that enemy against whom God fights for ever. + +(But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for ever +remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous chapter, +a quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me from the +Calvinistic conclusion of Mr. Brock's satire.) + + + +3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + + +Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by +nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, as +we have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is an +incident. One is an essential and the other an incidental separation +from God. It is possible to sin without being damned; and to be +damned is to be in a state when sin scarcely matters, like ink upon a +blackamoor. You cannot have questions of more or less among absolute +things. + +It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so soon as +the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not remain always +in touch with God. At first it seems incredible that one should ever +have any motive again that is not also God's motive. Then one +finds oneself caught unawares by a base impulse. We discover +that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous selves, the +unincorporated and warring elements that seemed at first altogether +absent from the synthesis of conversion. We are tripped up by +forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by tricks of appearance. +There come dull patches of existence; those mysterious obliterations of +one's finer sense that are due at times to the little minor poisons one +eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill-health and bodily disorder, or +one is betrayed by some unanticipated storm of emotion, brewed deep in +the animal being and released by any trifling accident, such as personal +jealousy or lust, or one is relaxed by contentment into vanity. +All these rebel forces of our ill-coordinated selves, all these +"disharmonies," of the inner being, snatch us away from our devotion to +God's service, carry us off to follies, offences, unkindness, waste, and +leave us compromised, involved, and regretful, perplexed by a hundred +difficulties we have put in our own way back to God. + +This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God can +help us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such reparation +as we can, to begin the battle again further back and lower down. From +God comes the power to anticipate the struggle with one's rebel self, +and to resist and prevail over it. + + + +4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + + +An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + +It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several +lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper +in these institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or +selected in some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go out +to their addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and as the +author of various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that is, to any +one much forced back upon reading, the writer is particularly accessible +to this type of correspondent. The letters come, some manifesting +a hopeless disorder that permits of no reply, but some being the +expression of minds overlaid not at all offensively by a web of fantasy, +and some (and these are the more touching ones and the ones that most +concern us now) as sanely conceived and expressed as any letters could +be. They are written by people living lives very like the lives of us +who are called "sane," except that they lift to a higher excitement and +fall to a lower depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or +melancholia slip the leash of mental consistency altogether and take +abnormal forms. They tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the safer +ways of mediocrity do but glimpse under the influence of drugs, or in +dreams and rare moments of controllable extravagance. Then the insane +become "glorious," or they become murderous, or they become suicidal. +All these letter-writers in confinement have convinced their +fellow-creatures by some extravagance that they are a danger to +themselves or others. + +The letters that come from such types written during their sane +intervals, are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware--I think +they should know--of the offences or possibilities that justify their +incarceration, write with a certain resentment at their position; others +are entirely acquiescent, but one or two complain of the neglect of +friends and relations. But all are as manifestly capable of religion and +of the religious life as any other intelligent persons during the +lucid interludes that make up nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . +Suppose now one of these cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes +the form of some cruel, disgusting, or destructive disposition that may +become at times overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with +sinful tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that +the mania which defines his position must be the primary if not the +cardinal business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with that +is different not in kind but merely in degree from the problem of +lusts, vanities, and weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It is an +unconquered tract, a great rebel province in his being, which refuses to +serve God and tries to prevent him serving God, and succeeds at times in +wresting his capital out of his control. But his relationship to that +is the same relationship as ours to the backward and insubordinate +parishes, criminal slums, and disorderly houses in our own private +texture. + +It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only the +better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered disposition +in him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is obliged to be +the keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His beast gets loose. +His only resort is to warn those about him when he feels that jangling +or excitement of the nerves which precedes its escapes, to limit its +range, to place weapons beyond its reach. And there are plenty of human +beings very much in his case, whose beasts have never got loose or have +got caught back before their essential insanity was apparent. And there +are those uncertifiable lunatics we call men and women of "impulse" +and "strong passions." If perhaps they have more self-control than the +really mad, yet it happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent +being falls under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than +the obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; +nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the +sedulous preparation of defences and palliatives against the return of +the storm. + +This discussion of the lunatic's case gives us indeed, usefully coarse +and large, the lines for the treatment of every human weakness by the +servants of God. A "weakness," just like the lunatic's mania, becomes a +particular charge under God, a special duty for the person it affects. +He has to minimise it, to isolate it, to keep it out of mischief. If he +can he must adopt preventive measures. . . . + +These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our +usefulness to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, +they wound our self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who +would trust us, they discredit the faith we profess. If they break +through and break through again it is natural and proper that men and +women should cease to believe in our faith, cease to work with us or to +meet us frankly. . . . Our sins do everything evil to us and through us +except separate us from God. + +Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a power. +Here God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of God in his +heart can defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and undaunted +after a hundred falls, escape from the grip of lusts and revenges, make +head against despair, thrust back the very onset of madness. He is still +the same man he was before he came to God, still with his libidinous, +vindictive, boastful, or indolent vein; but now his will to prevail +over those qualities can refer to an exterior standard and an external +interest, he can draw upon a strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + + + +5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + + +But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found God. +You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment you truly +repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation as is possible +there remains no barrier between you and God. Directly you cease to hide +or deny or escape, and turn manfully towards the consequences and the +setting of things right, you take hold again of the hand of God. Though +you sin seventy times seven times, God will still forgive the poor rest +of you. Nothing but utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off +from God. + +There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that it +can shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you but lift +up your head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness and cry to +him, God is there, God will not fail you. A convicted criminal, frankly +penitent, and neither obdurate nor abject, whatever the evil of his +yesterdays, may still die well and bravely on the gallows to the glory +of God. He may step straight from that death into the immortal being of +God. + +This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. +There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can +stand between God and man. + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + + + +1. THE WORLD DAWN + + +As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new +religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations +are still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the +continuance of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. +There are many signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may be +coming as swiftly as the morning comes after a tropical night. It may +seem at present as though nothing very much were happening, except for +the fact that the old familiar constellations of theology have become +a little pallid and lost something of their multitude of points. But +nothing fades of itself. The deep stillness of the late night is broken +by a stirring, and the morning star of creedless faith, the last and +brightest of the stars, the star that owes its light to the coming sun +is in the sky. + +There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir +before a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the +bluster of the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God +without any reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. The +Deists and Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never did that. +Their "Supreme Being" repudiated nothing. He was merely the whittled +stump of the Trinity. It is in the last few decades that the western +mind has slipped loose from this absolutist conception of God that has +dominated the intelligence of Christendom at least, for many centuries. +Almost unconsciously the new thought is taking a course that will lead +it far away from the moorings of Omnipotence. It is like a ship that +has slipped its anchors and drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and +vanishing stars, out to the open sea. . . . + + + +2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + + +In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this renascent +faith. + +For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief in +an infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds trained +under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which have hitherto +been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between pseudo-Christian +religion or denial, but also it opens the way towards the completest +understanding and sympathy and participation with the kindred movements +for release and for an intensification of the religious life, that are +going on outside the sphere of the Christian tradition and influence +altogether. Allusion has already been made to the sympathetic devotional +poetry of Rabindranath Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism +parallel with and assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + +It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is +entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an evil +entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is too easily +assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with renunciation, not +merely of self but of being, with the escape from all effort of any sort +into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed neither the spirit of China nor +of Islam nor of the every-day life of any people in the world. It is not +the spirit of the Sikh nor of these newer developments of Hindu thought. +It has never been the spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia +seem disposed to give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as +Europeans, do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we +can live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain +by escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not +a nation nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at this +moment by the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of God. This +is not an age of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in all the world +besides. + +Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that +which ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are being +thrust aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the spirit and +intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a heart-searching +Dialogue of the Dead, "How we settled our religions for ever and ever," +between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and one of Nizam-al-Mulk's +tame theologians. They would be drawn together by the same tribulations; +they would be in the closest sympathy against the temerity of the +moderns; they would have a common courtliness. The Quran is but little +read by Europeans; it is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that +it does not contain; there is much confusion in people's minds between +its text and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its +followers; in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it has +chiefly to tell of is the leadership of one individualised militant God +who claims the rule of the whole world, who favours neither rank nor +race, who would lead men to righteousness. It is much more free from +sacramentalism, from vestiges of the ancient blood sacrifice, and its +associated sacerdotalism, than Christianity. The religion that +will presently sway mankind can be reached more easily from that +starting-point than from the confused mysteries of Trinitarian theology. +Islam was never saddled with a creed. With the very name "Islam" +(submission to God) there is no quarrel for those who hold the new +faith. . . . + +All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the old +beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, its +Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its "religion without theology," its +attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to that +living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human mind almost +instinctively insists. . . . + +It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the +same God. + +So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and incidental +and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective to-day, may +be and most probably will be, in quite a few years a great flood +of religious unanimity pouring over and changing all human affairs, +sweeping away the old priesthoods and tabernacles and symbols and +shrines, the last crumb of the Orphic victim and the last rag of the +Serapeum, and turning all men about into one direction, as the ships and +houseboats swing round together in some great river with the uprush of +the tide. . . . + + + +3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + + +Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and identities +of the revived religion that has returned to them, certain questions +of organisation and assembly are being discussed. Every new religious +development is haunted by the precedents of the religion it replaces, +and it was only to be expected that among those who have recovered their +faith there should be a search for apostles and disciples, an attempt to +determine sources and to form original congregations, especially among +people with European traditions. + +These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are +imitative. This time there has been no revelation here or there; there +is no claim to a revelation but simply that God has become visible. Men +have thought and sought until insensibly the fog of obsolete theology +has cleared away. There seems no need therefore for special teachers +or a special propaganda, or any ritual or observances that will seem +to insist upon differences. The Christian precedent of a church +is particularly misleading. The church with its sacraments and its +sacerdotalism is the disease of Christianity. Save for a few doubtful +interpolations there is no evidence that Christ tolerated either blood +sacrifices or the mysteries of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses +were superadded after his martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a +gospel; he sent out not medicine men but apostles. + +No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They become +naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each will be +disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour's attention to what +he sees. The necessary elements of religion could be written on a +post card; this book, small as it is, bulks large not by what it tells +positively but because it deals with misconceptions. We may (little +doubt have I that we do) need special propagandas and organisations to +discuss errors and keep back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free +speech and restrain the enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want +a church to keep our faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for +that there is no need for orthodoxies and controlling organisations of +statement. It is for each man to follow his own impulse, and to speak to +his like in his own fashion. + +Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name +of the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge of +religion. + +The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation +in dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the +unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by +robes and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom +Christ detested and denounced, is full of warning against the dangers of +a church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the material needs +of men, for the draining of towns, the marshalling of traffic, the +collecting of eggs, and the carrying of letters, the distribution +of bread, the notification of measles, for hygiene and economics and +suchlike affairs. The better we organise such things, the freer and +better equipped we leave men's minds for nobler purposes, for those +adventures and experiments towards God's purpose which are the reality +of life. But all organisations must be watched, for whatever is +organised can be "captured" and misused. Repentance, moreover, is the +beginning and essential of the religious life, and organisations (acting +through their secretaries and officials) never repent. God deals +only with the individual for the individual's surrender. He takes no +cognisance of committees. + +Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are most +mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together is to +purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to strengthen one's +sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of mankind. Before you +know where you are you will have exchanged the spirit of God for ESPRIT +DE CORPS. You will have reinvented the SYMBOL; you will have begun to +keep anniversaries and establish sacramental ceremonies. The disposition +to form cliques and exclude and conspire against unlike people is all +too strong in humanity, to permit of its formal encouragement. Even such +organisation as is implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living +faith coagulates as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so +much as a definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for +worship and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of little +manifest good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and place for God to +irradiate your soul. + +All these are very valid objections to the church-forming disposition. + + + +4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + + +Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out about +God. They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + +Why should they not shout and share? + +Let them express all that they desire to express in their own fashion +by themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. Let them shout +chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a gang if so they +can work the better. But let them guard themselves against the idea +that they can have God particularly or exclusively with them in any such +undertaking. Or that so they can express God rather than themselves. + +That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the idea +of a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of altars, +away from the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical cannibalism, +beyond the sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the modern spirit holds +that religion cannot be organised or any intermediary thrust between God +and man, that does not preclude infinite possibilities of organisation +and collective action UNDER God and within the compass of religion. +There is no reason why religious men should not band themselves the +better to attain specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, +there is no objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not +against subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations +that may claim to be comprehensive. + +For example there is no reason why one should not--and in many cases +there are good reasons why one should--organise or join associations +for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass very +readily into propaganda. + +Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves and +to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not merely prayer +but formal prayer and the support of others, praying in unison. The +writer does not understand this desire or need for collective prayer +very well, but there are people who appear to do so and there is no +reason why they should not assemble for that purpose. And there is +no doubt that divine poetry, divine maxims, religious thought +finely expressed, may be heard, rehearsed, collected, published, and +distributed by associations. The desire for expression implies a sort +of assembly, a hearer at least as well as a speaker. And expression has +many forms. People with a strong artistic impulse will necessarily want +to express themselves by art when religion touches them, and many arts, +architecture and the drama for example, are collective undertakings. I +do not see why there should not be, under God, associations for building +cathedrals and suchlike great still places urgent with beauty, into +which men and women may go to rest from the clamour of the day's +confusions; I do not see why men should not make great shrines and +pictures expressing their sense of divine things, and why they should +not combine in such enterprises rather than work to fill heterogeneous +and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival and religious +clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly bring with it a +great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, and writings of +all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying places, temples and +retreats, the creation of pictures and sculptures. It is not necessary +to have priestcraft and an organised church for such ends. Such +enrichments of feeling and thought are part of the service of God. + +And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities +for research in pure science; associations for the teaching and +simplification of languages; associations for promoting and watching +education; associations for the discussion of political problems and +the determination of right policies. In all these ways men may multiply +their use by union. Only when associations seek to control things +of belief, to dictate formulae, restrict religious activities or the +freedom of religious thought and teaching, when they tend to subdivide +those who believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, do they become +antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + + + +5. THE STATE IS GOD'S INSTRUMENT + + +Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and +immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow +that religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed +essential to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round +world and all mankind, that we should see in every government, great +and small, from the council of the world-state that is presently coming, +down to the village assembly, the instrument of God's practical control. +Religion which is free, speaking freely through whom it will, subject to +a perpetual unlimited criticism, will be the life and driving power of +the whole organised world. So that if you prefer not to say that there +will be no church, if you choose rather to declare that the world-state +is God's church, you may have it so if you will. Provided that you +leave conscience and speech and writing and teaching about divine things +absolutely free, and that you try to set no nets about God. + +The world is God's and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, and +we find our freedom in him. + + + +THE ENVOY + + +So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I +believe to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and +spiritual confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It is a +statement and record; not a theory. There is nothing in all this that +has been invented or constructed by the writer; I have been but scribe +to the spirit of my generation; I have at most assembled and put +together things and thoughts that I have come upon, have transferred the +statements of "science" into religious terminology, rejected obsolescent +definitions, and re-coordinated propositions that had drifted into +opposition. Thus, I see, ideas are developing, and thus have I written +them down. It is a secondary matter that I am convinced that this trend +of intelligent opinion is a discovery of truth. The reader is told of my +own belief merely to avoid an affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + +The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing and +disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many different +schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is one that has +been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in the work of one I +am happy to write of as my friend and master, that very great American, +the late William James. It was an idea that became increasingly +important to him towards the end of his life. And it is the most +releasing idea in the system. + +Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of these +present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to what is +called Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile Deism of the +eighteenth century, of "votre Etre supreme" who bored the friends of +Robespierre, was a sterile thing, it has little relation to these modern +developments, it conceived of God as an infinite Being of no particular +character whereas God is a finite being of a very especial character. On +the other hand men and women who have set themselves, with unavoidable +theological preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual +teachings and quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that +have interwoven insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a +curious modernity about very many of Christ's recorded sayings. Revived +religion has also, no doubt, been the receiver of many religious +bankruptcies, of Positivism for example, which failed through its bleak +abstraction and an unspiritual texture. Religion, thus restated, must, +I think, presently incorporate great sections of thought that are still +attached to formal Christianity. The time is at hand when many of the +organised Christian churches will be forced to define their positions, +either in terms that will identify them with this renascence, or that +will lead to the release of their more liberal adherents. Its probable +obligations to Eastern thought are less readily estimated by a European +writer. + +Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the privilege +and possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it is appearing +simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a crystallising +substance appears here and there in a super-saturated solution. It is +a process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. It needs no other +guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but freedom, free speech, +and honest statement. Out of the most mixed and impure solutions a +growing crystal is infallibly able to select its substance. The diamond +arises bright, definite, and pure out of a dark matrix of structureless +confusion. + +This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the +advent and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no +authorities, no teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and +struggle among the other things; simply it grows clear. There will be +no putting an end to it. It arrives inevitably, and it will continue +to separate itself out from confusing ideas. It becomes, as it were the +Koh-i-noor; it is a Mountain of Light, growing and increasing. It is an +all-pervading lucidity, a brightness and clearness. It has no head to +smite, no body you can destroy; it overleaps all barriers; it breaks +out in despite of every enclosure. It will compel all things to orient +themselves to it. + +It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be +here or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the day +comes to the ships that put to sea. + +It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + + +THE END + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's God The Invisible King, by Herbert George Wells + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOD THE INVISIBLE KING *** + +***** This file should be named 1046.txt or 1046.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/4/1046/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + +5. THE INVISIBLE KING + +6. MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + +7. THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + +THE ENVOY + + + + +PREFACE + + +This book sets out as forcibly and exactly as possible the religious +belief of the writer. That belief is not orthodox Christianity; it +is not, indeed, Christianity at all; its core nevertheless is a +profound belief in a personal and intimate God. There is nothing in +its statements that need shock or offend anyone who is prepared for +the expression of a faith different from and perhaps in several +particulars opposed to his own. The writer will be found to be +sympathetic with all sincere religious feeling. Nevertheless it is +well to prepare the prospective reader for statements that may jar +harshly against deeply rooted mental habits. It is well to warn him +at the outset that the departure from accepted beliefs is here no +vague scepticism, but a quite sharply defined objection to dogmas +very widely revered. Let the writer state the most probable +occasion of trouble forthwith. An issue upon which this book will +be found particularly uncompromising is the dogma of the Trinity. +The writer is of opinion that the Council of Nicaea, which forcibly +crystallised the controversies of two centuries and formulated the +creed upon which all the existing Christian churches are based, was +one of the most disastrous and one of the least venerable of all +religious gatherings, and he holds that the Alexandrine speculations +which were then conclusively imposed upon Christianity merit only +disrespectful attention at the present time. There you have a chief +possibility of offence. He is quite unable to pretend any awe for +what he considers the spiritual monstrosities established by that +undignified gathering. He makes no attempt to be obscure or +propitiatory in this connection. He criticises the creeds +explicitly and frankly, because he believes it is particularly +necessary to clear them out of the way of those who are seeking +religious consolation at this present time of exceptional religious +need. He does little to conceal his indignation at the role played +by these dogmas in obscuring, perverting, and preventing the +religious life of mankind. After this warning such readers from +among the various Christian churches and sects as are accessible to +storms of theological fear or passion to whom the Trinity is an +ineffable mystery and the name of God almost unspeakably awful, read +on at their own risk. This is a religious book written by a +believer, but so far as their beliefs and religion go it may seem to +them more sceptical and more antagonistic than blank atheism. That +the writer cannot tell. He is not simply denying their God. He is +declaring that there is a living God, different altogether from that +Triune God and nearer to the heart of man. The spirit of this book +is like that of a missionary who would only too gladly overthrow and +smash some Polynesian divinity of shark's teeth and painted wood and +mother-of-pearl. To the writer such elaborations as "begotten of +the Father before all worlds" are no better than intellectual +shark's teeth and oyster shells. His purpose, like the purpose of +that missionary, is not primarily to shock and insult; but he is +zealous to liberate, and he is impatient with a reverence that +stands between man and God. He gives this fair warning and proceeds +with his matter. + +His matter is modern religion as he sees it. It is only +incidentally and because it is unavoidable that he attacks doctrinal +Christianity. + +In a previous book, "First and Last Things" (Constable and Co.), he +has stated his convictions upon certain general ideas of life and +thought as clearly as he could. All of philosophy, all of +metaphysics that is, seems to him to be a discussion of the +relations of class and individual. The antagonism of the Nominalist +and the Realist, the opposition of the One and the Many, the +contrast of the Ideal and the Actual, all these oppositions express +a certain structural and essential duality in the activity of the +human mind. From an imperfect recognition of that duality ensue +great masses of misconception. That was the substance of "First and +Last Things." In this present book there is no further attack on +philosophical or metaphysical questions. Here we work at a less +fundamental level and deal with religious feeling and religious +ideas. But just as the writer was inclined to attribute a whole +world of disputation and inexactitudes to confused thinking about +the exact value of classes and terms, so here he is disposed to +think that interminable controversies and conflicts arise out of a +confusion of intention due to a double meaning of the word "God"; +that the word "God" conveys not one idea or set of ideas, but +several essentially different ideas, incompatible one with another, +and falling mainly into one or other of two divergent groups; and +that people slip carelessly from one to the other of these groups of +ideas and so get into ultimately inextricable confusions. + +The writer believes that the centuries of fluid religious thought +that preceded the violent ultimate crystallisation of Nicaea, was +essentially a struggle--obscured, of course, by many complexities-- +to reconcile and get into a relationship these two separate main +series of God-ideas. + +Putting the leading idea of this book very roughly, these two +antagonistic typical conceptions of God may be best contrasted by +speaking of one of them as God-as-Nature or the Creator, and of the +other as God-as-Christ or the Redeemer. One is the great Outward +God; the other is the Inmost God. The first idea was perhaps +developed most highly and completely in the God of Spinoza. It is a +conception of God tending to pantheism, to an idea of a +comprehensive God as ruling with justice rather than affection, to a +conception of aloofness and awestriking worshipfulness. The second +idea, which is opposed to this idea of an absolute God, is the God +of the human heart. The writer would suggest that the great outline +of the theological struggles of that phase of civilisation and world +unity which produced Christianity, was a persistent but unsuccessful +attempt to get these two different ideas of God into one focus. It +was an attempt to make the God of Nature accessible and the God of +the Heart invincible, to bring the former into a conception of love +and to vest the latter with the beauty of stars and flowers and the +dignity of inexorable justice. There could be no finer metaphor for +such a correlation than Fatherhood and Sonship. But the trouble is +that it seems impossible to most people to continue to regard the +relations of the Father to the Son as being simply a mystical +metaphor. Presently some materialistic bias swings them in a moment +of intellectual carelessness back to the idea of sexual filiation. + +And it may further be suggested that the extreme aloofness and +inhumanity, which is logically necessary in the idea of a Creator +God, of an Infinite God, was the reason, so to speak, for the +invention of a Holy Spirit, as something proceeding from him, as +something bridging the great gulf, a Comforter, a mediator +descending into the sphere of the human understanding. That, and +the suggestive influence of the Egyptian Trinity that was then being +worshipped at the Serapeum, and which had saturated the thought of +Alexandria with the conception of a trinity in unity, are probably +the realities that account for the Third Person of the Christian +Trinity. At any rate the present writer believes that the +discussions that shaped the Christian theology we know were +dominated by such natural and fundamental thoughts. These +discussions were, of course, complicated from the outset; and +particularly were they complicated by the identification of the man +Jesus with the theological Christ, by materialistic expectations of +his second coming, by materialistic inventions about his +"miraculous" begetting, and by the morbid speculations about +virginity and the like that arose out of such grossness. They were +still further complicated by the idea of the textual inspiration of +the scriptures, which presently swamped thought in textual +interpretation. That swamping came very early in the development of +Christianity. The writer of St. John's gospel appears still to be +thinking with a considerable freedom, but Origen is already +hopelessly in the net of the texts. The writer of St. John's gospel +was a free man, but Origen was a superstitious man. He was +emasculated mentally as well as bodily through his bibliolatry. He +quotes; his predecessor thinks. + +But the writer throws out these guesses at the probable intentions +of early Christian thought in passing. His business here is the +definition of a position. The writer's position here in this book +is, firstly, complete Agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, +and secondly, entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. That, +so to speak, is the key of his book. He cannot bring the two ideas +under the same term God. He uses the word God therefore for the God +in our hearts only, and he uses the term the Veiled Being for the +ultimate mysteries of the universe, and he declares that we do not +know and perhaps cannot know in any comprehensible terms the +relation of the Veiled Being to that living reality in our lives who +is, in his terminology, the true God. Speaking from the point of +view of practical religion, he is restricting and defining the word +God, as meaning only the personal God of mankind, he is restricting +it so as to exclude all cosmogony and ideas of providence from our +religious thought and leave nothing but the essentials of the +religious life. + +Many people, whom one would class as rather liberal Christians of an +Arian or Arminian complexion, may find the larger part of this book +acceptable to them if they will read "the Christ God" where the +writer has written "God." They will then differ from him upon +little more than the question whether there is an essential identity +in aim and quality between the Christ God and the Veiled Being, who +answer to their Creator God. This the orthodox post Nicaean +Christians assert, and many pre-Nicaeans and many heretics (as the +Cathars) contradicted with its exact contrary. The Cathars, +Paulicians, Albigenses and so on held, with the Manichaeans, that +the God of Nature, God the Father, was evil. The Christ God was his +antagonist. This was the idea of the poet Shelley. And passing +beyond Christian theology altogether a clue can still be found to +many problems in comparative theology in this distinction between +the Being of Nature (cf. Kant's "starry vault above") and the God +of the heart (Kant's "moral law within"). The idea of an antagonism +seems to have been cardinal in the thought of the Essenes and the +Orphic cult and in the Persian dualism. So, too, Buddhism seems to +be "antagonistic." On the other hand, the Moslem teaching and +modern Judaism seem absolutely to combine and identify the two; God +the creator is altogether and without distinction also God the King +of Mankind. Christianity stands somewhere between such complete +identification and complete antagonism. It admits a difference in +attitude between Father and Son in its distinction between the Old +Dispensation (of the Old Testament) and the New. Every possible +change is rung in the great religions of the world between +identification, complete separation, equality, and disproportion of +these Beings; but it will be found that these two ideas are, so to +speak, the basal elements of all theology in the world. The writer +is chary of assertion or denial in these matters. He believes that +they are speculations not at all necessary to salvation. He +believes that men may differ profoundly in their opinions upon these +points and still be in perfect agreement upon the essentials of +religion. The reality of religion he believes deals wholly and +exclusively with the God of the Heart. He declares as his own +opinion, and as the opinion which seems most expressive of modern +thought, that there is no reason to suppose the Veiled Being either +benevolent or malignant towards men. But if the reader believes +that God is Almighty and in every way Infinite the practical outcome +is not very different. For the purposes of human relationship it is +impossible to deny that God PRESENTS HIMSELF AS FINITE, as +struggling and taking a part against evil. + +The writer believes that these dogmas of relationship are not merely +extraneous to religion, but an impediment to religion. His aim in +this book is to give a statement of religion which is no longer +entangled in such speculations and disputes. + + +Let him add only one other note of explanation in this preface, and +that is to remark that except for one incidental passage (in Chapter +IV., 1), nowhere does he discuss the question of personal +immortality. [It is discussed in "First and Last Things," Book IV, +4.] He omits this question because he does not consider that it has +any more bearing upon the essentials of religion, than have the +theories we may hold about the relation of God and the moral law to +the starry universe. The latter is a question for the theologian, +the former for the psychologist. Whether we are mortal or immortal, +whether the God in our hearts is the Son of or a rebel against the +Universe, the reality of religion, the fact of salvation, is still +our self-identification with God, irrespective of consequences, and +the achievement of his kingdom, in our hearts and in the world. +Whether we live forever or die tomorrow does not affect +righteousness. Many people seem to find the prospect of a final +personal death unendurable. This impresses me as egotism. I have +no such appetite for a separate immortality. God is my immortality; +what, of me, is identified with God, is God; what is not is of no +more permanent value than the snows of yester-year. + +H. G. W. + +Dunmow, +May, 1917. + + + + +GOD THE INVISIBLE KING + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +THE COSMOGONY OF MODERN RELIGION + + +1. MODERN RELIGION HAS NO FOUNDER + + +Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be +an exception, have dawned imperceptibly upon the world. A little +while ago and the thing was not; and then suddenly it has been found +in existence, and already in a state of diffusion. People have +begun to hear of the new belief first here and then there. It is +interesting, for example, to trace how Christianity drifted into the +consciousness of the Roman world. But when a religion has been +interrogated it has always had hitherto a tale of beginnings, the +name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that is now +taking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It +is the Truth, its believers declare; it has always been here; it has +always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps +plainer than it was and to more people--that is all. + +It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of +those who hold it still think of it as if it were a kind of +Christianity. Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley's, speak of it +as Christianity without Theology. They do not know the creed they +are carrying. It has, as a matter of fact, a very fine and subtle +theology, flatly opposed to any belief that could, except by great +stretching of charity and the imagination, be called Christianity. +One might find, perhaps, a parallelism with the system ascribed to +some Gnostics, but that is far more probably an accidental rather +than a sympathetic coincidence. Of that the reader shall presently +have an opportunity of judging. + +This indefiniteness of statement and relationship is probably only +the opening phase of the new faith. Christianity also began with an +extreme neglect of definition. It was not at first anything more +than a sect of Judaism. It was only after three centuries, amidst +the uproar and emotions of the council of Nicaea, when the more +enthusiastic Trinitarians stuffed their fingers in their ears in +affected horror at the arguments of old Arius, that the cardinal +mystery of the Trinity was established as the essential fact of +Christianity. Throughout those three centuries, the centuries of +its greatest achievements and noblest martyrdoms, Christianity had +not defined its God. And even to-day it has to be noted that a +large majority of those who possess and repeat the Christian creeds +have come into the practice so insensibly from unthinking childhood, +that only in the slightest way do they realise the nature of the +statements to which they subscribe. They will speak and think of +both Christ and God in ways flatly incompatible with the doctrine of +the Triune deity upon which, theoretically, the entire fabric of all +the churches rests. They will show themselves as frankly Arians as +though that damnable heresy had not been washed out of the world +forever after centuries of persecution in torrents of blood. But +whatever the present state of Christendom in these matters may be, +there can be no doubt of the enormous pains taken in the past to +give Christian beliefs the exactest, least ambiguous statement +possible. Christianity knew itself clearly for what it was in its +maturity, whatever the indecisions of its childhood or the +confusions of its decay. The renascent religion that one finds now, +a thing active and sufficient in many minds, has still scarcely come +to self-consciousness. But it is so coming, and this present book +is very largely an attempt to state the shape it is assuming and to +compare it with the beliefs and imperatives and usages of the +various Christian, pseudo-Christian, philosophical, and agnostic +cults amidst which it has appeared. + +The writer's sympathies and convictions are entirely with this that +he speaks of as renascent or modern religion; he is neither atheist +nor Buddhist nor Mohammedan nor Christian. He will make no +pretence, therefore, to impartiality and detachment. He will do his +best to be as fair as possible and as candid as possible, but the +reader must reckon with this bias. He has found this faith growing +up in himself; he has found it, or something very difficult to +distinguish from it, growing independently in the minds of men and +women he has met. They have been people of very various origins; +English, Americans, Bengalis, Russians, French, people brought up in +a "Catholic atmosphere," Positivists, Baptists, Sikhs, Mohammedans. +Their diversity of source is as remarkable as their convergence of +tendency. A miscellany of minds thinking upon parallel lines has +come out to the same light. The new teaching is also traceable in +many professedly Christian religious books and it is to be heard +from Christian pulpits. The phase of definition is manifestly at +hand. + + + +2. MODERN RELIGION HAS A FINITE GOD + + +Perhaps the most fundamental difference between this new faith and +any recognised form of Christianity is that, knowingly or +unknowingly, it worships A FINITE GOD. Directly the believer is +fairly confronted with the plain questions of the case, the vague +identifications that are still carelessly made with one or all of +the persons of the Trinity dissolve away. He will admit that his +God is neither all-wise, nor all-powerful, nor omnipresent; that he +is neither the maker of heaven nor earth, and that he has little to +identify him with that hereditary God of the Jews who became the +"Father" in the Christian system. On the other hand he will assert +that his God is a god of salvation, that he is a spirit, a person, a +strongly marked and knowable personality, loving, inspiring, and +lovable, who exists or strives to exist in every human soul. He +will be much less certain in his denials that his God has a close +resemblance to the Pauline (as distinguished from the Trinitarian) +"Christ." . . . + +The modern religious man will almost certainly profess a kind of +universalism; he will assert that whensoever men have called upon +any God and have found fellowship and comfort and courage and that +sense of God within them, that inner light which is the quintessence +of the religious experience, it was the True God that answered them. +For the True God is a generous God, not a jealous God; the very +antithesis of that bickering monopolist who "will have none other +gods but Me"; and when a human heart cries out--to what name it +matters not--for a larger spirit and a stronger help than the +visible things of life can give, straightway the nameless Helper is +with it and the God of Man answers to the call. The True God has no +scorn nor hate for those who have accepted the many-handed symbols +of the Hindu or the lacquered idols of China. Where there is faith, +where there is need, there is the True God ready to clasp the hands +that stretch out seeking for him into the darkness behind the ivory +and gold. + +The fact that God is FINITE is one upon which those who think +clearly among the new believers are very insistent. He is, above +everything else, a personality, and to be a personality is to have +characteristics, to be limited by characteristics; he is a Being, +not us but dealing with us and through us, he has an aim and that +means he has a past and future; he is within time and not outside +it. And they point out that this is really what everyone who prays +sincerely to God or gets help from God, feels and believes. Our +practice with God is better than our theory. None of us really pray +to that fantastic, unqualified danse a trois, the Trinity, which the +wranglings and disputes of the worthies of Alexandria and Syria +declared to be God. We pray to one single understanding person. +But so far the tactics of those Trinitarians at Nicaea, who stuck +their fingers in their ears, have prevailed in this world; this was +no matter for discussion, they declared, it was a Holy Mystery full +of magical terror, and few religious people have thought it worth +while to revive these terrors by a definite contradiction. The +truly religious have been content to lapse quietly into the +comparative sanity of an unformulated Arianism, they have left it to +the scoffing Atheist to mock at the patent absurdities of the +official creed. But one magnificent protest against this +theological fantasy must have been the work of a sincerely religious +man, the cold superb humour of that burlesque creed, ascribed, at +first no doubt facetiously and then quite seriously, to Saint +Athanasius the Great, which, by an irony far beyond its original +intention, has become at last the accepted creed of the church. + +The long truce in the criticism of Trinitarian theology is drawing +to its end. It is when men most urgently need God that they become +least patient with foolish presentations and dogmas. The new +believers are very definitely set upon a thorough analysis of the +nature and growth of the Christian creeds and ideas. There has +grown up a practice of assuming that, when God is spoken of, the +Hebrew-Christian God of Nicaea is meant. But that God trails with +him a thousand misconceptions and bad associations; his alleged +infinite nature, his jealousy, his strange preferences, his +vindictive Old Testament past. These things do not even make a +caricature of the True God; they compose an altogether different and +antagonistic figure. + +It is a very childish and unphilosophical set of impulses that has +led the theologians of nearly every faith to claim infinite +qualities for their deity. One has to remember the poorness of the +mental and moral quality of the churchmen of the third, fourth, and +fifth centuries who saddled Christendom with its characteristic +dogmas, and the extreme poverty and confusion of the circle of ideas +within which they thought. Many of these makers of Christianity, +like Saint Ambrose of Milan (who had even to be baptised after his +election to his bishopric), had been pitchforked into the church +from civil life; they lived in a time of pitiless factions and +personal feuds; they had to conduct their disputations amidst the +struggles of would-be emperors; court eunuchs and favourites swayed +their counsels, and popular rioting clinched their decisions. There +was less freedom of discussion then in the Christian world than +there is at present (1916) in Belgium, and the whole audience of +educated opinion by which a theory could be judged did not equal, +either in numbers or accuracy of information, the present population +of Constantinople. To these conditions we owe the claim that the +Christian God is a magic god, very great medicine in battle, "in hoc +signo vinces," and the argument so natural to the minds of those +days and so absurd to ours, that since he had ALL power, all +knowledge, and existed for ever and ever, it was no use whatever to +set up any other god against him. . . . + +By the fifth century Christianity had adopted as its fundamental +belief, without which everyone was to be "damned everlastingly," a +conception of God and of Christ's relation to God, of which even by +the Christian account of his teaching, Jesus was either totally +unaware or so negligent and careless of the future comfort of his +disciples as scarcely to make mention. The doctrine of the Trinity, +so far as the relationship of the Third Person goes, hangs almost +entirely upon one ambiguous and disputed utterance in St. John's +gospel (XV. 26). Most of the teachings of Christian orthodoxy +resolve themselves to the attentive student into assertions of the +nature of contradiction and repartee. Someone floats an opinion in +some matter that has been hitherto vague, in regard, for example, to +the sonship of Christ or to the method of his birth. The new +opinion arouses the hostility and alarm of minds unaccustomed to so +definite a statement, and in the zeal of their recoil they fly to a +contrary proposition. The Christians would neither admit that they +worshipped more gods than one because of the Greeks, nor deny the +divinity of Christ because of the Jews. They dreaded to be +polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction +from the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced +into the theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary +assertions, and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to +save it from a reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the +growth of the Christian doctrine in those disordered early centuries +is a history of theology by committee; a history of furious +wrangling, of hasty compromises, and still more hasty attempts to +clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle was at its very worst, +the church was confronted by enormous political opportunities. In +order that it should seize these one chief thing appeared +imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit +unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in +the midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of +it all Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn +everlastingly all those who doubted that consubstantiality he +himself had doubted at the beginning of the conference. It is quite +clear that Constantine did not care who was damned or for what +period, so long as the Christians ceased to wrangle among +themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was secured by +threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by threats to +restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common faith to +unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the +Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the +systematic destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, +had about it none of that quality of honest conviction which comes +to those who have a real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of +dissensions that, left to work themselves out, would have spoilt +good business; it was the fist of Nicolas of Myra over again, except +that after the days of Ambrose the sword of the executioner and the +fires of the book-burner were added to the weapon of the human +voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice formally offered +up under these improved conditions to the greater glory of the +reinforced Trinity. Thereafter the blood of the heretics was the +cement of Christian unity. + +It is with these things in mind that those who profess the new faith +are becoming so markedly anxious to distinguish God from the +Trinitarian's deity. At present if anyone who has left the +Christian communion declares himself a believer in God, priest and +parson swell with self-complacency. There is no reason why they +should do so. That many of us have gone from them and found God is +no concern of theirs. It is not that we who went out into the +wilderness which we thought to be a desert, away from their creeds +and dogmas, have turned back and are returning. It is that we have +gone on still further, and are beyond that desolation. Never more +shall we return to those who gather under the cross. By faith we +disbelieved and denied. By faith we said of that stuffed scarecrow +of divinity, that incoherent accumulation of antique theological +notions, the Nicene deity, "This is certainly no God." And by faith +we have found God. . . . + + + +3. THE INFINITE BEING IS NOT GOD + + +There has always been a demand upon the theological teacher that he +should supply a cosmogony. It has always been an effective +propagandist thing to say: "OUR God made the whole universe. Don't +you think that it would be wise to abandon YOUR deity, who did not, +as you admit, do anything of the sort?" + +The attentive reader of the lives of the Saints will find that this +style of argument did in the past bring many tribes and nations into +the Christian fold. It was second only to the claim of magic +advantages, demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great +religious system, the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the +temptation to secure for its divinity the honour and title of +Creator. Modern religion is like Buddhism in that respect. It +offers no theory whatever about the origin of the universe. It does +not reach behind the appearances of space and time. It sees only a +featureless presumption in that playing with superlatives which has +entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the Hegelians with the +delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or the +Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known +things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence +is a Veiled Being, which seems to know nothing of life or death or +good or ill. Of that Being, whether it is simple or complex or +divine, we know nothing; to us it is no more than the limit of +understanding, the unknown beyond. It may be of practically +limitless intricacy and possibility. The new religion does not +pretend that the God of its life is that Being, or that he has any +relation of control or association with that Being. It does not +even assert that God knows all or much more than we do about that +ultimate Being. + +For us life is a matter of our personalities in space and time. +Human analysis probing with philosophy and science towards the +Veiled Being reveals nothing of God, reveals space and time only as +necessary forms of consciousness, glimpses a dance of atoms, of +whirls in the ether. Some day in the endless future there may be a +knowledge, an understanding of relationship, a power and courage +that will pierce into those black wrappings. To that it may be our +God, the Captain of Mankind will take us. + +That now is a mere speculation. The veil of the unknown is set with +the stars; its outer texture is ether and atom and crystal. The +Veiled Being, enigmatical and incomprehensible, broods over the +mirror upon which the busy shapes of life are moving. It is as if +it waited in a great stillness. Our lives do not deal with it, and +cannot deal with it. It may be that they may never be able to deal +with it. + + + +4. THE LIFE FORCE IS NOT GOD + + +So it is that comprehensive setting of the universe presents itself +to the modern mind. It is altogether outside good and evil and love +and hate. It is outside God, who is love and goodness. And coming +out of this veiled being, proceeding out of it in a manner +altogether inconceivable, is another lesser being, an impulse +thrusting through matter and clothing itself in continually changing +material forms, the maker of our world, Life, the Will to Be. It +comes out of that inscrutable being as a wave comes rolling to us +from beyond the horizon. It is as it were a great wave rushing +through matter and possessed by a spirit. It is a breeding, +fighting thing; it pants through the jungle track as the tiger and +lifts itself towards heaven as the tree; it is the rabbit bolting +for its life and the dove calling to her mate; it crawls, it flies, +it dives, it lusts and devours, it pursues and eats itself in order +to live still more eagerly and hastily; it is every living thing, of +it are our passions and desires and fears. And it is aware of +itself not as a whole, but dispersedly as individual self- +consciousness, starting out dispersedly from every one of the +sentient creatures it has called into being. They look out for +their little moments, red-eyed and fierce, full of greed, full of +the passions of acquisition and assimilation and reproduction, +submitting only to brief fellowships of defence or aggression. They +are beings of strain and conflict and competition. They are living +substance still mingled painfully with the dust. The forms in which +this being clothes itself bear thorns and fangs and claws, are +soaked with poison and bright with threats or allurements, prey +slyly or openly on one another, hold their own for a little while, +breed savagely and resentfully, and pass. . . . + +This second Being men have called the Life Force, the Will to Live, +the Struggle for Existence. They have figured it too as Mother +Nature. We may speculate whether it is not what the wiser among the +Gnostics meant by the Demiurge, but since the Christians destroyed +all the Gnostic books that must remain a mere curious guess. We may +speculate whether this heat and haste and wrath of life about us is +the Dark God of the Manichees, the evil spirit of the sun +worshippers. But in contemporary thought there is no conviction +apparent that this Demiurge is either good or evil; it is conceived +of as both good and evil. If it gives all the pain and conflict of +life, it gives also the joy of the sunshine, the delight and hope of +youth, the pleasures. If it has elaborated a hundred thousand sorts +of parasite, it has also moulded the beautiful limbs of man and +woman; it has shaped the slug and the flower. And in it, as part of +it, taking its rewards, responding to its goads, struggling against +the final abandonment to death, do we all live, as the beasts live, +glad, angry, sorry, revengeful, hopeful, weary, disgusted, +forgetful, lustful, happy, excited, bored, in pain, mood after mood +but always fearing death, with no certainty and no coherence within +us, until we find God. And God comes to us neither out of the stars +nor out of the pride of life, but as a still small voice within. + + + +5. GOD IS WITHIN + + +God comes we know not whence, into the conflict of life. He works +in men and through men. He is a spirit, a single spirit and a +single person; he has begun and he will never end. He is the +immortal part and leader of mankind. He has motives, he has +characteristics, he has an aim. He is by our poor scales of +measurement boundless love, boundless courage, boundless generosity. +He is thought and a steadfast will. He is our friend and brother +and the light of the world. That briefly is the belief of the +modern mind with regard to God. There is no very novel idea about +this God, unless it be the idea that he had a beginning. This is +the God that men have sought and found in all ages, as God or as the +Messiah or the Saviour. The finding of him is salvation from the +purposelessness of life. The new religion has but disentangled the +idea of him from the absolutes and infinities and mysteries of the +Christian theologians; from mythological virgin births and the +cosmogonies and intellectual pretentiousness of a vanished age. + +Modern religion appeals to no revelation, no authoritative teaching, +no mystery. The statement it makes is, it declares, a mere +statement of what we may all perceive and experience. We all live +in the storm of life, we all find our understandings limited by the +Veiled Being; if we seek salvation and search within for God, +presently we find him. All this is in the nature of things. If +every one who perceives and states it were to be instantly killed +and blotted out, presently other people would find their way to the +same conclusions; and so on again and again. To this all true +religion, casting aside its hulls of misconception, must ultimately +come. To it indeed much religion is already coming. Christian +thought struggles towards it, with the millstones of Syrian theology +and an outrageous mythology of incarnation and resurrection about +its neck. When at last our present bench of bishops join the early +fathers of the church in heaven there will be, I fear, a note of +reproach in their greeting of the ingenious person who saddled them +with OMNIPOTENS. Still more disastrous for them has been the virgin +birth, with the terrible fascination of its detail for unpoetic +minds. How rich is the literature of authoritative Christianity +with decisions upon the continuing virginity of Mary and the +virginity of Joseph--ideas that first arose in Arabia as a Moslem +gloss upon Christianity--and how little have these peepings and +pryings to do with the needs of the heart and the finding of God! + +Within the last few years there have been a score or so of such +volumes as that recently compiled by Dr. Foakes Jackson, entitled +"The Faith and the War," a volume in which the curious reader may +contemplate deans and canons, divines and church dignitaries, men +intelligent and enquiring and religiously disposed, all lying like +overladen camels, panting under this load of obsolete theological +responsibility, groaning great articles, outside the needle's eye +that leads to God. + + + +6. THE COMING OF GOD + + +Modern religion bases its knowledge of God and its account of God +entirely upon experience. It has encountered God. It does not +argue about God; it relates. It relates without any of those +wrappings of awe and reverence that fold so necessarily about +imposture, it relates as one tells of a friend and his assistance, +of a happy adventure, of a beautiful thing found and picked up by +the wayside. + +So far as its psychological phases go the new account of personal +salvation tallies very closely with the account of "conversion" as +it is given by other religions. It has little to tell that is not +already familiar to the reader of William James's "Varieties of +Religious Experience." It describes an initial state of distress +with the aimlessness and cruelties of life, and particularly with +the futility of the individual life, a state of helpless self- +disgust, of inability to form any satisfactory plan of living. This +is the common prelude known to many sorts of Christian as +"conviction of sin"; it is, at any rate, a conviction of hopeless +confusion. . . . Then in some way the idea of God comes into the +distressed mind, at first simply as an idea, without substance or +belief. It is read about or it is remembered; it is expounded by +some teacher or some happy convert. In the case of all those of the +new faith with whose personal experience I have any intimacy, the +idea of God has remained for some time simply as an idea floating +about in a mind still dissatisfied. God is not believed in, but it +is realised that if there were such a being he would supply the +needed consolation and direction, his continuing purpose would knit +together the scattered effort of life, his immortality would take +the sting from death. Under this realisation the idea is pursued +and elaborated. For a time there is a curious resistance to the +suggestion that God is truly a person; he is spoken of preferably by +such phrases as the Purpose in Things, as the Racial Consciousness, +as the Collective Mind. + +I believe that this resistance in so many contemporary minds to the +idea of God as a person is due very largely to the enormous +prejudice against divine personality created by the absurdities of +the Christian teaching and the habitual monopoly of the Christian +idea. The picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd thrusts itself +before minds unaccustomed to the idea that they are lambs. The +cross in the twilight bars the way. It is a novelty and an enormous +relief to such people to realise that one may think of God without +being committed to think of either the Father, the Son, or the Holy +Ghost, or of all of them at once. That freedom had not seemed +possible to them. They had been hypnotised and obsessed by the idea +that the Christian God is the only thinkable God. They had heard so +much about that God and so little of any other. With that release +their minds become, as it were, nascent and ready for the coming of +God. + +Then suddenly, in a little while, in his own time, God comes. This +cardinal experience is an undoubting, immediate sense of God. It is +the attainment of an absolute certainty that one is not alone in +oneself. It is as if one was touched at every point by a being akin +to oneself, sympathetic, beyond measure wiser, steadfast and pure in +aim. It is completer and more intimate, but it is like standing +side by side with and touching someone that we love very dearly and +trust completely. It is as if this being bridged a thousand +misunderstandings and brought us into fellowship with a great +multitude of other people. . . . + +"Closer he is than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet." + +The moment may come while we are alone in the darkness, under the +stars, or while we walk by ourselves or in a crowd, or while we sit +and muse. It may come upon the sinking ship or in the tumult of the +battle. There is no saying when it may not come to us. . . . But +after it has come our lives are changed, God is with us and there is +no more doubt of God. Thereafter one goes about the world like one +who was lonely and has found a lover, like one who was perplexed and +has found a solution. One is assured that there is a Power that +fights with us against the confusion and evil within us and without. +There comes into the heart an essential and enduring happiness and +courage. + +There is but one God, there is but one true religious experience, +but under a multitude of names, under veils and darknesses, God has +in this manner come into countless lives. There is scarcely a +faith, however mean and preposterous, that has not been a way to +holiness. God who is himself finite, who himself struggles in his +great effort from strength to strength, has no spite against error. +Far beyond halfway he hastens to meet the purblind. But God is +against the darkness in their eyes. The faith which is returning to +men girds at veils and shadows, and would see God plainly. It has +little respect for mysteries. It rends the veil of the temple in +rags and tatters. It has no superstitious fear of this huge +friendliness, of this great brother and leader of our little beings. +To find God is but the beginning of wisdom, because then for all our +days we have to learn his purpose with us and to live our lives with +him. + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +HERESIES; OR THE THINGS THAT GOD IS NOT + + +1. HERESIES ARE MISCONCEPTIONS OF GOD + + +Religion is not a plant that has grown from one seed; it is like a +lake that has been fed by countless springs. It is a great pool of +living water, mingled from many sources and tainted with much +impurity. It is synthetic in its nature; it becomes simpler from +original complexities; the sediment subsides. + +A life perfectly adjusted to its surroundings is a life without +mentality; no judgment is called for, no inhibition, no disturbance +of the instinctive flow of perfect reactions. Such a life is bliss, +or nirvana. It is unconsciousness below dreaming. Consciousness is +discord evoking the will to adjust; it is inseparable from need. At +every need consciousness breaks into being. Imperfect adjustments, +needs, are the rents and tatters in the smooth dark veil of being +through which the light of consciousness shines--the light of +consciousness and will of which God is the sun. + +So that every need of human life, every disappointment and +dissatisfaction and call for help and effort, is a means whereby men +may and do come to the realisation of God. + +There is no cardinal need, there is no sort of experience in human +life from which there does not come or has not come a contribution +to men's religious ideas. At every challenge men have to put forth +effort, feel doubt of adequacy, be thwarted, perceive the chill +shadow of their mortality. At every challenge comes the possibility +of help from without, the idea of eluding frustration, the +aspiration towards immortality. It is possible to classify the +appeals men make for God under the headings of their chief system of +effort, their efforts to understand, their fear and their struggles +for safety and happiness, the craving of their restlessness for +peace, their angers against disorder and their desire for the +avenger; their sexual passions and perplexities. . . . + +Each of these great systems of needs and efforts brings its own sort +of sediment into religion. Each, that is to say, has its own kind +of heresy, its distinctive misapprehension of God. It is only in +the synthesis and mutual correction of many divergent ideas that the +idea of God grows clear. The effort to understand completely, for +example, leads to the endless Heresies of Theory. Men trip over the +inherent infirmities of the human mind. But in these days one does +not argue greatly about dogma. Almost every conceivable error about +unity, about personality, about time and quantity and genus and +species, about begetting and beginning and limitation and similarity +and every kink in the difficult mind of man, has been thrust forward +in some form of dogma. Beside the errors of thought are the errors +of emotion. Fear and feebleness go straight to the Heresies that +God is Magic or that God is Providence; restless egotism at leisure +and unchallenged by urgent elementary realities breeds the Heresies +of Mysticism, anger and hate call for God's Judgments, and the +stormy emotions of sex gave mankind the Phallic God. Those who find +themselves possessed by the new spirit in religion, realise very +speedily the necessity of clearing the mind of all these +exaggerations, transferences, and overflows of feeling. The search +for divine truth is like gold washing; nothing is of any value until +most has been swept away. + + + +2. HERESIES OF SPECULATION + + +One sort of heresies stands apart from the rest. It is infinitely +the most various sort. It includes all those heresies which result +from wrong-headed mental elaboration, as distinguished from those +which are the result of hasty and imperfect apprehension, the +heresies of the clever rather than the heresies of the obtuse. The +former are of endless variety and complexity; the latter are in +comparison natural, simple confusions. The former are the errors of +the study, the latter the superstitions that spring by the wayside, +or are brought down to us in our social structure out of a barbaric +past. + +To the heresies of thought and speculation belong the elaborate +doctrine of the Trinity, dogmas about God's absolute qualities, such +odd deductions as the accepted Christian teachings about the +virginity of Mary and Joseph, and the like. All these things are +parts of orthodox Christianity. Yet none of them did Christ, even +by the Christian account, expound or recommend. He treated them as +negligible. It was left for the Alexandrians, for Alexander, for +little, red-haired, busy, wire-pulling Athanasius to find out +exactly what their Master was driving at, three centuries after +their Master was dead. . . . + +Men still sit at little desks remote from God or life, and rack +their inadequate brains to meet fancied difficulties and state +unnecessary perfections. They seek God by logic, ignoring the +marginal error that creeps into every syllogism. Their conceit +blinds them to the limitations upon their thinking. They weave +spider-like webs of muddle and disputation across the path by which +men come to God. It would not matter very much if it were not that +simpler souls are caught in these webs. Every great religious +system in the world is choked by such webs; each system has its own. +Of all the blood-stained tangled heresies which make up doctrinal +Christianity and imprison the mind of the western world to-day, not +one seems to have been known to the nominal founder of Christianity. +Jesus Christ never certainly claimed to be the Messiah; never spoke +clearly of the Trinity; was vague upon the scheme of salvation and +the significance of his martyrdom. We are asked to suppose that he +left his apostles without instructions, that were necessary to their +eternal happiness, that he could give them the Lord's Prayer but +leave them to guess at the all-important Creed,* and that the Church +staggered along blindly, putting its foot in and out of damnation, +until the "experts" of Nicaea, that "garland of priests," marshalled +by Constantine's officials, came to its rescue. . . . From the +conversion of Paul onward, the heresies of the intellect multiplied +about Christ's memory and hid him from the sight of men. We are no +longer clear about the doctrine he taught nor about the things he +said and did. . . . + +* Even the "Apostles' Creed" is not traceable earlier than the +fourth century. It is manifestly an old, patched formulary. +Rutinius explains that it was not written down for a long time, but +transmitted orally, kept secret, and used as a sort of password +among the elect. + +We are all so weary of this theology of the Christians, we are all +at heart so sceptical about their Triune God, that it is needless +here to spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different +formulae in which the orthodox have attempted to believe in +something of the sort. There are several useful encyclopaedias of +sects and heresies, compact, but still bulky, to which the curious +may go. There are ten thousand different expositions of orthodoxy. +No one who really seeks God thinks of the Trinity, either the +Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of the Sabellian or the +Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of those theories +made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, who sit on +lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the temples of +India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of the +human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural +heresies that spring from fundamental weaknesses of the human +character, and which are common to all religions. Against these it +is necessary to keep constant watch. They return very insidiously. + + + +3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC + + +One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is +to consider him as something magic serving the ends of men. + +It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving +our souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all +too apt to hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the +poor triumph of acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people +who have been led to believe themselves religious, are in reality +still keeping back their own souls and trying to use God for their +own purposes. God is nothing more for them as yet than a +magnificent Fetish. They did not really want him, but they have +heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls think to make use +of him. They call upon his name, they do certain things that are +supposed to be peculiarly influential with him, such as saying +prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in a blind, +industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early +Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification, +or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these +fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the +normal course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial +log-roller. He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty +ailments, contrives unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the +like, he averts bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and +does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful +people. The pious are represented as being constantly delighted by +these little surprises, these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the +divinity. Or contrawise he contrives spiteful turns for those who +fail in their religious attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking +children, or disorganises the careful business schemes of the +ungodly. He is represented as going Sabbath-breakering on Sunday +morning as a Staffordshire worker goes ratting. Ordinary everyday +Christianity is saturated with this fetishistic conception of God. +It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly +advocated in the parish magazine. It is an idea taken over by +Christianity with the rest of the qualities of the Hebrew God. It +is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their recognition of +weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, but it is +entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true God. + +There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical +called THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with +portraits of various clergymen of the Church of England, and of +ladies and gentlemen who belong to the little school of thought +which this magazine represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect +entirely within the Established Church of England, that is to say +within the Anglican communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It +contains among other papers a very entertaining summary by a +gentleman entitled--I cite the unusual title-page of the periodical-- +"Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.," of the views of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and +Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are distinctly hostile views. +Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only upon these anticipatory +condemnations but also upon the relations of the weather to this +war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God has been +persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points out +that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the +British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet +state of the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in +the winter of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in +delaying the relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the +difficult question why the Deity, having once decided upon +intervention, did not, instead of this comparatively trivial +meteorological assistance, adopt the more effective course of, for +example, exploding or spoiling the German stores of ammunition by +some simple atomic miracle, or misdirecting their gunfire by a +sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or gravitation. + +Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only +conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible +in the established church, and that I am charging orthodox +Christianity here with nothing that has ever been officially +repudiated. I find indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer +Mackenzie repeated in endless official Christian utterances on the +part of German and British and Russian divines. The Bishop of +Chelmsford, for example, has recently ascribed our difficulties in +the war to our impatience with long sermons--among other similar +causes. Such Christians are manifestly convinced that God can be +invoked by ritual--for example by special days of national prayer or +an increased observance of Sunday--or made malignant by neglect or +levity. It is almost fundamental in their idea of him. The +ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of +God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and +resentments of "Heaven" is at least equally strong. + +But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such +God of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men's ends or the +ends of nations or associations of men; he is careless of our +ceremonies and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our +follies and weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us, +he does not coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs +us. . . . + + + +4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE + + +Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that +calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause +and effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is +pulling about the order of events for our personal advantages. + +The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in +"Tartarin in the Alps." You will remember how Tartarin's friend +assured him that all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon +attracting tourists and far too wise and kind to permit them to +venture into real danger, that all the precipices were netted +invisibly, and all the loose rocks guarded against falling, that +avalanches were prearranged spectacles and the crevasses at their +worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment bags. If the +mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned back by +specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved with +incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of +the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a +timid soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And +provided there is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory +works well. It would work altogether well if there were no +crevasses. + +Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and +escaped. But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into +a crevasse? + +There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis +Younghusband called "Within." [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is +the confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in +Providence until he was already well advanced in years. He went +through battles and campaigns, he filled positions of great honour +and responsibility, he saw much of the life of men, without +altogether losing his faith. The loss of a child, an Indian famine, +could shake it but not overthrow it. Then coming back one day from +some races in France, he was knocked down by an automobile and hurt +very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and mind. His +sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost to +see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and +the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterling honesty and a +fine essential simplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he +could not do so. His confidence in the benevolent intervention of +God was altogether destroyed. His book tells of this shattering, +and how labouriously he reconstructed his religion upon less +confident lines. It is a book typical of an age and of a very +English sort of mind, a book well worth reading. + +That he came to a full sense of the true God cannot be asserted, but +how near he came to God, let one quotation witness. + + +"The existence of an outside Providence," he writes, "who created +us, who watches over us, and who guides our lives like a Merciful +Father, we have found impossible longer to believe in. But of the +existence of a Holy Spirit radiating upward through all animate +beings, and finding its fullest expression, in man in love, and in +the flowers in beauty, we can be as certain as of anything in the +world. This fiery spiritual impulsion at the centre and the source +of things, ever burning in us, is the supremely important factor in +our existence. It does not always attain to light. In many +directions it fails; the conditions are too hard and it is utterly +blocked. In others it only partially succeeds. But in a few it +bursts forth into radiant light. There are few who in some heavenly +moment of their lives have not been conscious of its presence. We +may not be able to give it outward expression, but we know that it +is there." . . . + + +God does not guide our feet. He is no sedulous governess +restraining and correcting the wayward steps of men. If you would +fly into the air, there is no God to bank your aeroplane correctly +for you or keep an ill-tended engine going; if you would cross a +glacier, no God nor angel guides your steps amidst the slippery +places. He will not even mind your innocent children for you if you +leave them before an unguarded fire. Cherish no delusions; for +yourself and others you challenge danger and chance on your own +strength; no talisman, no God, can help you or those you care for. +Nothing of such things will God do; it is an idle dream. But God +will be with you nevertheless. In the reeling aeroplane or the dark +ice-cave God will be your courage. Though you suffer or are killed, +it is not an end. He will be with you as you face death; he will +die with you as he has died already countless myriads of brave +deaths. He will come so close to you that at the last you will not +know whether it is you or he who dies, and the present death will be +swallowed up in his victory. + + +5. THE HERESY OF QUIETISM + + +God comes to us within and takes us for his own. He releases us +from ourselves; he incorporates us with his own undying experience +and adventure; he receives us and gives himself. He is a stimulant; +he makes us live immortally and more abundantly. I have compared +him to the sensation of a dear, strong friend who comes and stands +quietly beside one, shoulder to shoulder. + +The finding of God is the beginning of service. It is not an escape +from life and action; it is the release of life and action from the +prison of the mortal self. Not to realise that, is the heresy of +Quietism, of many mystics. Commonly such people are people of some +wealth, able to command services for all their everyday needs. They +make religion a method of indolence. They turn their backs on the +toil and stresses of existence and give themselves up to a delicious +reverie in which they flirt with the divinity. They will recount +their privileges and ecstasies, and how ingeniously and wonderfully +God has tried and proved them. But indeed the true God was not the +lover of Madame Guyon. The true God is not a spiritual troubadour +wooing the hearts of men and women to no purpose. The true God goes +through the world like fifes and drums and flags, calling for +recruits along the street. We must go out to him. We must accept +his discipline and fight his battle. The peace of God comes not by +thinking about it but by forgetting oneself in him. + + + +6. GOD DOES NOT PUNISH + + +Man is a social animal, and there is in him a great faculty for +moral indignation. Many of the early Gods were mainly Gods of Fear. +They were more often "wrath" than not. Such was the temperament of +the Semitic deity who, as the Hebrew Jehovah, proliferated, perhaps +under the influence of the Alexandrian Serapeum, into the Christian +Trinity and who became also the Moslem God.* The natural hatred of +unregenerate men against everything that is unlike themselves, +against strange people and cheerful people, against unfamiliar +usages and things they do not understand, embodied itself in this +conception of a malignant and partisan Deity, perpetually "upset" by +the little things people did, and contriving murder and vengeance. +Now this God would be drowning everybody in the world, now he would +be burning Sodom and Gomorrah, now he would be inciting his +congenial Israelites to the most terrific pogroms. This divine +"frightfulness" is of course the natural human dislike and distrust +for queer practices or for too sunny a carelessness, a dislike +reinforced by the latent fierceness of the ape in us, liberating the +latent fierceness of the ape in us, giving it an excuse and pressing +permission upon it, handing the thing hated and feared over to its +secular arm. . . . + +* It is not so generally understood as it should be among English +and American readers that a very large proportion of early +Christians before the creeds established and regularised the +doctrine of the Trinity, denied absolutely that Jehovah was God; +they regarded Christ as a rebel against Jehovah and a rescuer of +humanity from him, just as Prometheus was a rebel against Jove. +These beliefs survived for a thousand years throughout Christendom: +they were held by a great multitude of persecuted sects, from the +Albigenses and Cathars to the eastern Paulicians. The catholic +church found it necessary to prohibit the circulation of the Old +Testament among laymen very largely on account of the polemics of +the Cathars against the Hebrew God. But in this book, be it noted, +the word Christian, when it is not otherwise defined, is used to +indicate only the Trinitarians who accept the official creeds. + +It is a human paradox that the desire for seemliness, the instinct +for restraints and fair disciplines, and the impulse to cherish +sweet familiar things, that these things of the True God should so +readily liberate cruelty and tyranny. It is like a woman going with +a light to tend and protect her sleeping child, and setting the +house on fire. None the less, right down to to-day, the heresy of +God the Revengeful, God the Persecutor and Avenger, haunts religion. +It is only in quite recent years that the growing gentleness of +everyday life has begun to make men a little ashamed of a Deity less +tolerant and gentle than themselves. The recent literature of the +Anglicans abounds in the evidence of this trouble. + +Bishop Colenso of Natal was prosecuted and condemned in 1863 for +denying the irascibility of his God and teaching "the Kaffirs of +Natal" the dangerous heresy that God is all mercy. "We cannot allow +it to be said," the Dean of Cape Town insisted, "that God was not +angry and was not appeased by punishment." He was angry "on account +of Sin, which is a great evil and a great insult to His Majesty." +The case of the Rev. Charles Voysey, which occurred in 1870, was a +second assertion of the Church's insistence upon the fierceness of +her God. This case is not to be found in the ordinary church +histories nor is it even mentioned in the latest edition of the +ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA; nevertheless it appears to have been a +very illuminating case. It is doubtful if the church would +prosecute or condemn either Bishop Colenso or Mr. Voysey to-day. + + + +7. GOD AND THE NURSERY-MAID + + +Closely related to the Heresy of God the Avenger, is that kind of +miniature God the Avenger, to whom the nursery-maid and the +overtaxed parent are so apt to appeal. You stab your children with +such a God and he poisons all their lives. For many of us the word +"God" first came into our lives to denote a wanton, irrational +restraint, as Bogey, as the All-Seeing and quite ungenerous Eye. +God Bogey is a great convenience to the nursery-maid who wants to +leave Fear to mind her charges and enforce her disciplines, while +she goes off upon her own aims. But indeed, the teaching of God +Bogey is an outrage upon the soul of a child scarcely less dreadful +than an indecent assault. The reason rebels and is crushed under +this horrible and pursuing suggestion. Many minds never rise again +from their injury. They remain for the rest of life spiritually +crippled and debased, haunted by a fear, stained with a persuasion +of relentless cruelty in the ultimate cause of all things. + +I, who write, was so set against God, thus rendered. He and his +Hell were the nightmare of my childhood; I hated him while I still +believed in him, and who could help but hate? I thought of him as a +fantastic monster, perpetually spying, perpetually listening, +perpetually waiting to condemn and to "strike me dead"; his flames +as ready as a grill-room fire. He was over me and about my +feebleness and silliness and forgetfulness as the sky and sea would +be about a child drowning in mid-Atlantic. When I was still only a +child of thirteen, by the grace of the true God in me, I flung this +Lie out of my mind, and for many years, until I came to see that God +himself had done this thing for me, the name of God meant nothing to +me but the hideous scar in my heart where a fearful demon had been. + +I see about me to-day many dreadful moral and mental cripples with +this bogey God of the nursery-maid, with his black, insane revenges, +still living like a horrible parasite in their hearts in the place +where God should be. They are afraid, afraid, afraid; they dare not +be kindly to formal sinners, they dare not abandon a hundred foolish +observances; they dare not look at the causes of things. They are +afraid of sunshine, of nakedness, of health, of adventure, of +science, lest that old watching spider take offence. The voice of +the true God whispers in their hearts, echoes in speech and writing, +but they avert themselves, fear-driven. For the true God has no +lash of fear. And how the foul-minded bigot, with his ill-shaven +face, his greasy skin, his thick, gesticulating hands, his +bellowings and threatenings, loves to reap this harvest of fear the +ignorant cunning of the nursery girl has sown for him! How he loves +the importance of denunciation, and, himself a malignant cripple, to +rally the company of these crippled souls to persecute and destroy +the happy children of God! . . . + +Christian priestcraft turns a dreadful face to children. There is a +real wickedness of the priest that is different from other +wickedness, and that affects a reasonable mind just as cruelty and +strange perversions of instinct affect it. Let a former Archbishop +of Canterbury speak for me. This that follows is the account given +by Archbishop Tait in a debate in the Upper House of Convocation +(July 3rd, 1877) of one of the publications of a certain SOCIETY OF +THE HOLY CROSS: + + +"I take this book, as its contents show, to be meant for the +instruction of very young children. I find, in one of the pages of +it, the statement that between the ages of six and six and a half +years would be the proper time for the inculcation of the teaching +which is to be found in the book. Now, six to six and a half is +certainly a very tender age, and to these children I find these +statements addressed in the book: + + +"'It is to the priest, and to the priest only, that the child must +acknowledge his sins, if he desires that God should forgive him.' + + +"I hope and trust the person, the three clergymen, or however many +there were, did not exactly realise what they were writing; that +they did not mean to say that a child was not to confess its sins to +God direct; that it was not to confess its sins, at the age of six, +to its mother, or to its father, but was only to have recourse to +the priest. But the words, to say the least of them, are rash. +Then comes the very obvious question: + + +"'Do you know why? It is because God, when he was on earth, gave to +his priests, and to them alone, the Divine Power of forgiving men +their sins. It was to priests alone that Jesus said: "Receive ye +the Holy Ghost." . . . Those who will not confess will not be +cured. Sin is a terrible sickness, and casts souls into hell.' + + +"That is addressed to a child six years of age. + + +"'I have known,' the book continues, 'poor children who concealed +their sins in confession for years; they were very unhappy, were +tormented with remorse, and if they had died in that state they +would certainly have gone to the everlasting fires of hell.'" . . . + + +Now here is something against nature, something that I have seen +time after time in the faces and bearing of priests and heard in +their preaching. It is a distinct lust. Much nobility and devotion +there are among priests, saintly lives and kindly lives, lives of +real worship, lives no man may better; this that I write is not of +all, perhaps not of many priests. But there has been in all ages +that have known sacerdotalism this terrible type of the priest; +priestcraft and priestly power release an aggressive and narrow +disposition to a recklessness of suffering and a hatred of liberty +that surely exceeds the badness of any other sort of men. + + + +8. THE CHILDREN'S GOD + + +Children do not naturally love God. They have no great capacity for +an idea so subtle and mature as the idea of God. While they are +still children in a home and cared for, life is too kind and easy +for them to feel any great need of God. All things are still +something God-like. . . . + +The true God, our modern minds insist upon believing, can have no +appetite for unnatural praise and adoration. He does not clamour +for the attention of children. He is not like one of those senile +uncles who dream of glory in the nursery, who love to hear it said, +"The children adore him." If children are loved and trained to +truth, justice, and mutual forbearance, they will be ready for the +true God as their needs bring them within his scope. They should be +left to their innocence, and to their trust in the innocence of the +world, as long as they can be. They should be told only of God as a +Great Friend whom some day they will need more and understand and +know better. That is as much as most children need. The phrases of +religion put too early into their mouths may become a cant, +something worse than blasphemy. + +Yet children are sometimes very near to God. Creative passion stirs +in their play. At times they display a divine simplicity. But it +does not follow that therefore they should be afflicted with +theological formulae or inducted into ceremonies and rites that they +may dislike or misinterpret. If by any accident, by the death of a +friend or a distressing story, the thought of death afflicts a +child, then he may begin to hear of God, who takes those that serve +him out of their slain bodies into his shining immortality. Or if +by some menial treachery, through some prowling priest, the whisper +of Old Bogey reaches our children, then we may set their minds at +ease by the assurance of his limitless charity. . . . + +With adolescence comes the desire for God and to know more of God, +and that is the most suitable time for religious talk and teaching. + + + +9. GOD IS NOT SEXUAL + + +In the last two or three hundred years there has been a very +considerable disentanglement of the idea of God from the complex of +sexual thought and feeling. But in the early days of religion the +two things were inseparably bound together; the fury of the Hebrew +prophets, for example, is continually proclaiming the extraordinary +"wrath" of their God at this or that little dirtiness or +irregularity or breach of the sexual tabus. The ceremony of +circumcision is clearly indicative of the original nature of the +Semitic deity who developed into the Trinitarian God. So far as +Christianity dropped this rite, so far Christianity disavowed the +old associations. But to this day the representative Christian +churches still make marriage into a mystical sacrament, and, with +some exceptions, the Roman communion exacts the sacrifice of +celibacy from its priesthood, regardless of the mischievousness and +maliciousness that so often ensue. Nearly every Christian church +inflicts as much discredit and injustice as it can contrive upon the +illegitimate child. They do not treat illegitimate children as +unfortunate children, but as children with a mystical and an +incurable taint of SIN. Kindly easy-going Christians may resent +this statement because it does not tally with their own attitudes, +but let them consult their orthodox authorities. + +One must distinguish clearly here between what is held to be sacred +or sinful in itself and what is held to be one's duty or a nation's +duty because it is in itself the wisest, cleanest, clearest, best +thing to do. By the latter tests and reasonable arguments most or +all of our institutions regulating the relations of the sexes may be +justifiable. But my case is not whether they can be justified by +these tests but that it is not by these tests that they are judged +even to-day, by the professors of the chief religions of the world. +It is the temper and not the conclusions of the religious bodies +that I would criticise. These sexual questions are guarded by a +holy irascibility, and the most violent efforts are made--with a +sense of complete righteousness--to prohibit their discussion. That +fury about sexual things is only to be explained on the hypothesis +that the Christian God remains a sex God in the minds of great +numbers of his exponents. His disentanglement from that plexus is +incomplete. Sexual things are still to the orthodox Christian, +sacred things. + +Now the God whom those of the new faith are finding is only +mediately concerned with the relations of men and women. He is no +more sexual essentially than he is essentially dietetic or hygienic. +The God of Leviticus was all these things. He is represented as +prescribing the most petty and intimate of observances--many of +which are now habitually disregarded by the Christians who profess +him. . . . It is part of the evolution of the idea of God that we +have now so largely disentangled our conception of him from the +dietary and regimen and meticulous sexual rules that were once +inseparably bound up with his majesty. Christ himself was one of +the chief forces in this disentanglement, there is the clearest +evidence in several instances of his disregard of the rule and his +insistence that his disciples should seek for the spirit underlying +and often masked by the rule. His Church, being made of baser +matter, has followed him as reluctantly as possible and no further +than it was obliged. But it has followed him far enough to admit +his principle that in all these matters there is no need for +superstitious fear, that the interpretation of the divine purpose is +left to the unembarrassed intelligence of men. The church has +followed him far enough to make the harsh threatenings of priests +and ecclesiastics against what they are pleased to consider impurity +or sexual impiety, a profound inconsistency. One seems to hear +their distant protests when one reads of Christ and the Magdalen, or +of Christ eating with publicans and sinners. The clergy of our own +days play the part of the New Testament Pharisees with the utmost +exactness and complete unconsciousness. One cannot imagine a modern +ecclesiastic conversing with a Magdalen in terms of ordinary +civility, unless she was in a very high social position indeed, or +blending with disreputable characters without a dramatic sense of +condescension and much explanatory by-play. Those who profess +modern religion do but follow in these matters a course entirely +compatible with what has survived of the authentic teachings of +Christ, when they declare that God is not sexual, and that religious +passion and insult and persecution upon the score of sexual things +are a barbaric inheritance. + +But lest anyone should fling off here with some hasty assumption +that those who profess the religion of the true God are sexually +anarchistic, let stress be laid at once upon the opening sentence of +the preceding paragraph, and let me a little anticipate a section +which follows. We would free men and women from exact and +superstitious rules and observances, not to make them less the +instruments of God but more wholly his. The claim of modern +religion is that one should give oneself unreservedly to God, that +there is no other salvation. The believer owes all his being and +every moment of his life to God, to keep mind and body as clean, +fine, wholesome, active and completely at God's service as he can. +There is no scope for indulgence or dissipation in such a +consecrated life. It is a matter between the individual and his +conscience or his doctor or his social understanding what exactly he +may do or not do, what he may eat or drink or so forth, upon any +occasion. Nothing can exonerate him from doing his utmost to +determine and perform the right act. Nothing can excuse his failure +to do so. But what is here being insisted upon is that none of +these things has immediately to do with God or religious emotion, +except only the general will to do right in God's service. The +detailed interpretation of that "right" is for the dispassionate +consideration of the human intelligence. + +All this is set down here as distinctly as possible. Because of the +emotional reservoirs of sex, sexual dogmas are among the most +obstinately recurrent of all heresies, and sexual excitement is +always tending to leak back into religious feeling. Amongst the +sex-tormented priesthood of the Roman communion in particular, +ignorant of the extreme practices of the Essenes and of the Orphic +cult and suchlike predecessors of Christianity, there seems to be an +extraordinary belief that chastity was not invented until +Christianity came, and that the religious life is largely the +propitiation of God by feats of sexual abstinence. But a +superstitious abstinence that scars and embitters the mind, distorts +the imagination, makes the body gross and keeps it unclean, is just +as offensive to God as any positive depravity. + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE LIKENESS OF GOD + + +1. GOD IS COURAGE + +Now having set down what those who profess the new religion regard +as the chief misconceptions of God, having put these systems of +ideas aside from our explanations, the path is cleared for the +statement of what God is. Since language springs entirely from +material, spatial things, there is always an element of metaphor in +theological statement. So that I have not called this chapter the +Nature of God, but the Likeness of God. + +And firstly, GOD IS COURAGE. + + + +2. GOD IS A PERSON + + +And next GOD IS A PERSON. + +Upon this point those who are beginning to profess modern religion +are very insistent. It is, they declare, the central article, the +axis, of their religion. God is a person who can be known as one +knows a friend, who can be served and who receives service, who +partakes of our nature; who is, like us, a being in conflict with +the unknown and the limitless and the forces of death; who values +much that we value and is against much that we are pitted against. +He is our king to whom we must be loyal; he is our captain, and to +know him is to have a direction in our lives. He feels us and knows +us; he is helped and gladdened by us. He hopes and attempts. . . . +God is no abstraction nor trick of words, no Infinite. He is as +real as a bayonet thrust or an embrace. + +Now this is where those who have left the old creeds and come asking +about the new realisations find their chief difficulty. They say, +Show us this person; let us hear him. (If they listen to the +silences within, presently they will hear him.) But when one +argues, one finds oneself suddenly in the net of those ancient +controversies between species and individual, between the one and +the many, which arise out of the necessarily imperfect methods of +the human mind. Upon these matters there has been much pregnant +writing during the last half century. Such ideas as this writer has +to offer are to be found in a previous little book of his, "First +and Last Things," in which, writing as one without authority or +specialisation in logic and philosophy, as an ordinary man vividly +interested, for others in a like case, he was at some pains to +elucidate the imperfections of this instrument of ours, this mind, +by which we must seek and explain and reach up to God. Suffice it +here to say that theological discussion may very easily become like +the vision of a man with cataract, a mere projection of inherent +imperfections. If we do not use our phraseology with a certain +courage, and take that of those who are trying to convey their ideas +to us with a certain politeness and charity, there is no end +possible to any discussion in so subtle and intimate a matter as +theology but assertions, denials, and wranglings. And about this +word "person" it is necessary to be as clear and explicit as +possible, though perfect clearness, a definition of mathematical +sharpness, is by the very nature of the case impossible. + +Now when we speak of a person or an individual we think typically of +a man, and we forget that he was once an embryo and will presently +decay; we forget that he came of two people and may beget many, that +he has forgotten much and will forget more, that he can be confused, +divided against himself, delirious, drunken, drugged, or asleep. On +the contrary we are, in our hasty way of thinking of him, apt to +suppose him continuous, definite, acting consistently and never +forgetting. But only abstract and theoretical persons are like +that. We couple with him the idea of a body. Indeed, in the common +use of the word "person" there is more thought of body than of mind. +We speak of a lover possessing the person of his mistress. We speak +of offences against the person as opposed to insults, libels, or +offences against property. And the gods of primitive men and the +earlier civilisations were quite of that quality of person. They +were thought of as living in very splendid bodies and as acting +consistently. If they were invisible in the ordinary world it was +because they were aloof or because their "persons" were too splendid +for weak human eyes. Moses was permitted a mitigated view of the +person of the Hebrew God on Mount Horeb; and Semele, who insisted +upon seeing Zeus in the glories that were sacred to Juno, was +utterly consumed. The early Islamic conception of God, like the +conception of most honest, simple Christians to-day, was clearly, in +spite of the theologians, of a very exalted anthropomorphic +personality away somewhere in Heaven. The personal appearance of +the Christian God is described in The Revelation, and however much +that description may be explained away by commentators as +symbolical, it is certainly taken by most straightforward believers +as a statement of concrete reality. Now if we are going to insist +upon this primary meaning of person and individual, then certainly +God as he is now conceived is not a person and not an individual. +The true God will never promenade an Eden or a Heaven, nor sit upon +a throne. + +But current Christianity, modern developments of Islam, much Indian +theological thought--that, for instance, which has found such +delicate and attractive expression in the devotional poetry of +Rabindranath Tagore--has long since abandoned this anthropomorphic +insistence upon a body. From the earliest ages man's mind has found +little or no difficulty in the idea of something essential to the +personality, a soul or a spirit or both, existing apart from the +body and continuing after the destruction of the body, and being +still a person and an individual. From this it is a small step to +the thought of a person existing independently of any existing or +pre-existing body. That is the idea of theological Christianity, as +distinguished from the Christianity of simple faith. The Triune +Persons--omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent--exist for all +time, superior to and independent of matter. They are supremely +disembodied. One became incarnate--as a wind eddy might take up a +whirl of dust. . . . Those who profess modern religion conceive +that this is an excessive abstraction of the idea of spirituality, a +disembodiment of the idea of personality beyond the limits of the +conceivable; nevertheless they accept the conception that a person, +a spiritual individual, may be without an ordinary mortal body. . . . +They declare that God is without any specific body, that he is +immaterial, that he can affect the material universe--and that means +that he can only reach our sight, our hearing, our touch--through +the bodies of those who believe in him and serve him. + +His nature is of the nature of thought and will. Not only has he, +in his essence, nothing to do with matter, but nothing to do with +space. He is not of matter nor of space. He comes into them. +Since the period when all the great theologies that prevail to-day +were developed, there have been great changes in the ideas of men +towards the dimensions of time and space. We owe to Kant the +release from the rule of these ideas as essential ideas. Our modern +psychology is alive to the possibility of Being that has no +extension in space at all, even as our speculative geometry can +entertain the possibility of dimensions--fourth, fifth, Nth +dimensions--outside the three-dimensional universe of our +experience. And God being non-spatial is not thereby banished to an +infinite remoteness, but brought nearer to us; he is everywhere +immediately at hand, even as a fourth dimension would be everywhere +immediately at hand. He is a Being of the minds and in the minds of +men. He is in immediate contact with all who apprehend him. . . . + +But modern religion declares that though he does not exist in matter +or space, he exists in time just as a current of thought may do; +that he changes and becomes more even as a man's purpose gathers +itself together; that somewhere in the dawning of mankind he had a +beginning, an awakening, and that as mankind grows he grows. With +our eyes he looks out upon the universe he invades; with our hands, +he lays hands upon it. All our truth, all our intentions and +achievements, he gathers to himself. He is the undying human +memory, the increasing human will. + +But this, you may object, is no more than saying that God is the +collective mind and purpose of the human race. You may declare that +this is no God, but merely the sum of mankind. But those who +believe in the new ideas very steadfastly deny that. God is, they +say, not an aggregate but a synthesis. He is not merely the best of +all of us, but a Being in himself, composed of that but more than +that, as a temple is more than a gathering of stones, or a regiment +is more than an accumulation of men. They point out that a man is +made up of a great multitude of cells, each equivalent to a +unicellular organism. Not one of those cells is he, nor is he +simply just the addition of all of them. He is more than all of +them. You can take away these and these and these, and he still +remains. And he can detach part of himself and treat it as if it +were not himself, just as a man may beat his breast or, as Cranmer +the martyr did, thrust his hand into the flames. A man is none the +less himself because his hair is cut or his appendix removed or his +leg amputated. + +And take another image. . . . Who bears affection for this or that +spadeful of mud in my garden? Who cares a throb of the heart for +all the tons of chalk in Kent or all the lumps of limestone in +Yorkshire? But men love England, which is made up of such things. + +And so we think of God as a synthetic reality, though he has neither +body nor material parts. And so too we may obey him and listen to +him, though we think but lightly of the men whose hands or voices he +sometimes uses. And we may think of him as having moods and +aspects--as a man has--and a consistency we call his character. + +These are theorisings about God. These are statements to convey +this modern idea of God. This, we say, is the nature of the person +whose will and thoughts we serve. No one, however, who understands +the religious life seeks conversion by argument. First one must +feel the need of God, then one must form or receive an acceptable +idea of God. That much is no more than turning one's face to the +east to see the coming of the sun. One may still doubt if that +direction is the east or whether the sun will rise. The real coming +of God is not that. It is a change, an irradiation of the mind. +Everything is there as it was before, only now it is aflame. +Suddenly the light fills one's eyes, and one knows that God has +risen and that doubt has fled for ever. + + +3. GOD IS YOUTH + + +The third thing to be told of the true God is that GOD IS YOUTH. + +God, we hold, began and is always beginning. He looks forever into +the future. + +Most of the old religions derive from a patriarchal phase. God is +in those systems the Ancient of Days. I know of no Christian +attempt to represent or symbolise God the Father which is not a +bearded, aged man. White hair, beard, bearing, wrinkles, a hundred +such symptoms of senile decay are there. These marks of senility do +not astonish our modern minds in the picture of God, only because +tradition and usage have blinded our eyes to the absurdity of a +time-worn immortal. Jove too and Wotan are figures far past the +prime of their vigour. These are gods after the ancient habit of +the human mind, that turned perpetually backward for causes and +reasons and saw all things to come as no more than the working out +of Fate,-- + + "Of Man's first disobedience and the fruit + Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste + Brought death into the world and all our woe." + +But the God of this new age, we repeat, looks not to our past but +our future, and if a figure may represent him it must be the figure +of a beautiful youth, already brave and wise, but hardly come to his +strength. He should stand lightly on his feet in the morning time, +eager to go forward, as though he had but newly arisen to a day that +was still but a promise; he should bear a sword, that clean, +discriminating weapon, his eyes should be as bright as swords; his +lips should fall apart with eagerness for the great adventure before +him, and he should be in very fresh and golden harness, reflecting +the rising sun. Death should still hang like mists and cloud banks +and shadows in the valleys of the wide landscape about him. There +should be dew upon the threads of gossamer and little leaves and +blades of the turf at his feet. . . . + + + +4. WHEN WE SAY GOD IS LOVE + + +One of the sayings about God that have grown at the same time most +trite and most sacred, is that God is Love. This is a saying that +deserves careful examination. Love is a word very loosely used; +there are people who will say they love new potatoes; there are a +multitude of loves of different colours and values. There is the +love of a mother for her child, there is the love of brothers, there +is the love of youth and maiden, and the love of husband and wife, +there is illicit love and the love one bears one's home or one's +country, there are dog-lovers and the loves of the Olympians, and +love which is a passion of jealousy. Love is frequently a mere +blend of appetite and preference; it may be almost pure greed; it +may have scarcely any devotion nor be a whit self-forgetful nor +generous. It is possible so to phrase things that the furtive +craving of a man for another man's wife may be made out to be a +light from God. Yet about all the better sorts of love, the sorts +of love that people will call "true love," there is something of +that same exaltation out of the narrow self that is the essential +quality of the knowledge of God. + +Only while the exaltation of the love passion comes and goes, the +exaltation of religious passion comes to remain. Lovers are the +windows by which we may look out of the prison of self, but God is +the open door by which we freely go. And God never dies, nor +disappoints, nor betrays. + +The love of a woman and a man has usually, and particularly in its +earlier phases of excitement, far too much desire, far too much +possessiveness and exclusiveness, far too much distrust or forced +trust, and far too great a kindred with jealousy to be like the love +of God. The former is a dramatic relationship that drifts to a +climax, and then again seeks presently a climax, and that may be +satiated or fatigued. But the latter is far more like the love of +comrades, or like the love of a man and a woman who have loved and +been through much trouble together, who have hurt one another and +forgiven, and come to a complete and generous fellowship. There is +a strange and beautiful love that men tell of that will spring up on +battlefields between sorely wounded men, and often they are men who +have fought together, so that they will do almost incredibly brave +and tender things for one another, though but recently they have +been trying to kill each other. There is often a pure exaltation of +feeling between those who stand side by side manfully in any great +stress. These are the forms of love that perhaps come nearest to +what we mean when we speak of the love of God. + +That is man's love of God, but there is also something else; there +is the love God bears for man in the individual believer. Now this +is not an indulgent, instinctive, and sacrificing love like the love +of a woman for her baby. It is the love of the captain for his men; +God must love his followers as a great captain loves his men, who +are so foolish, so helpless in themselves, so confiding, and yet +whose faith alone makes him possible. It is an austere love. The +spirit of God will not hesitate to send us to torment and bodily +death. . . . + +And God waits for us, for all of us who have the quality to reach +him. He has need of us as we of him. He desires us and desires to +make himself known to us. When at last the individual breaks +through the limiting darknesses to him, the irradiation of that +moment, the smile and soul clasp, is in God as well as in man. He +has won us from his enemy. We come staggering through into the +golden light of his kingdom, to fight for his kingdom henceforth, +until at last we are altogether taken up into his being. + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +THE RELIGION OF ATHEISTS + + + +1. THE SCIENTIFIC ATHEIST + + +It is a curious thing that while most organised religions seem to +drape about and conceal and smother the statement of the true God, +the honest Atheist, with his passionate impulse to strip the truth +bare, is constantly and unwittingly reproducing the divine likeness. +It will be interesting here to call a witness or so to the extreme +instability of absolute negation. + +Here, for example, is a deliverance from Professor Metchnikoff, who +was a very typical antagonist of all religion. He died only the +other day. He was a very great physiologist indeed; he was a man +almost of the rank and quality of Pasteur or Charles Darwin. A +decade or more ago he wrote a book called "The Nature of Man," in +which he set out very plainly a number of illuminating facts about +life. They are facts so illuminating that presently, in our +discussion of sin, they will be referred to again. But it is not +Professor Metchnikoff's intention to provide material for a +religious discussion. He sets out his facts in order to overthrow +theology as he conceives it. The remarkable thing about his book, +the thing upon which I would now lay stress, is that he betrays no +inkling of the fact that he has no longer the right to conceive +theology as he conceives it. The development of his science has +destroyed that right. + +He does not realise how profoundly modern biology has affected our +ideas of individuality and species, and how the import of theology +is modified through these changes. When he comes from his own world +of modern biology to religion and philosophy he goes back in time. +He attacks religion as he understood it when first he fell out with +it fifty years or more ago. + +Let us state as compactly as possible the nature of these changes +that biological science has wrought almost imperceptibly in the +general scheme and method of our thinking. + +The influence of biology upon thought in general consists +essentially in diminishing the importance of the individual and +developing the realisation of the species, as if it were a kind of +super-individual, a modifying and immortal super-individual, +maintaining itself against the outer universe by the birth and death +of its constituent individuals. Natural History, which began by +putting individuals into species as if the latter were mere +classificatory divisions, has come to see that the species has its +adventures, its history and drama, far exceeding in interest and +importance the individual adventure. "The Origin of Species" was +for countless minds the discovery of a new romance in life. + +The contrast of the individual life and this specific life may be +stated plainly and compactly as follows. A little while ago we +current individuals, we who are alive now, were each of us +distributed between two parents, then between four grandparents, and +so on backward, we are temporarily assembled, as it were, out of an +ancestral diffusion; we stand our trial, and presently our +individuality is dispersed and mixed again with other +individualities in an uncertain multitude of descendants. But the +species is not like this; it goes on steadily from newness to +newness, remaining still a unity. The drama of the individual life +is a mere episode, beneficial or abandoned, in this continuing +adventure of the species. And Metchnikoff finds most of the trouble +of life and the distresses of life in the fact that the species is +still very painfully adjusting itself to the fluctuating conditions +under which it lives. The conflict of life is a continual pursuit +of adjustment, and the "ills of life," of the individual life that +is, are due to its "disharmonies." Man, acutely aware of himself as +an individual adventure and unawakened to himself as a species, +finds life jangling and distressful, finds death frustration. He +fails and falls as a person in what may be the success and triumph +of his kind. He does not apprehend the struggle or the nature of +victory, but only his own gravitation to death and personal +extinction. + +Now Professor Metchnikoff is anti-religious, and he is anti- +religious because to him as to so many Europeans religion is +confused with priest-craft and dogmas, is associated with +disagreeable early impressions of irrational repression and +misguidance. How completely he misconceives the quality of +religion, how completely he sees it as an individual's affair, his +own words may witness: + + +"Religion is still occupied with the problem of death. The +solutions which as yet it has offered cannot be regarded as +satisfactory. A future life has no single argument to support it, +and the non-existence of life after death is in consonance with the +whole range of human knowledge. On the other hand, resignation as +preached by Buddha will fail to satisfy humanity, which has a +longing for life, and is overcome by the thought of the +inevitability of death." + + +Now here it is clear that by death he means the individual death, +and by a future life the prolongation of individuality. But +Buddhism does not in truth appear ever to have been concerned with +that, and modern religious developments are certainly not under that +preoccupation with the narrower self. Buddhism indeed so far from +"preaching resignation" to death, seeks as its greater good a death +so complete as to be absolute release from the individual's burthen +of KARMA. Buddhism seeks an ESCAPE FROM INDIVIDUAL IMMORTALITY. +The deeper one pursues religious thought the more nearly it +approximates to a search for escape from the self-centred life and +over-individuation, and the more it diverges from Professor +Metchnikoff's assertion of its aims. Salvation is indeed to lose +one's self. But Professor Metchnikoff having roundly denied that +this is so, is then left free to take the very essentials of the +religious life as they are here conceived and present them as if +they were the antithesis of the religious life. His book, when it +is analysed, resolves itself into just that research for an escape +from the painful accidents and chagrins of individuation, which is +the ultimate of religion. + +At times, indeed, he seems almost wilfully blind to the true +solution round and about which his writing goes. He suggests as his +most hopeful satisfaction for the cravings of the human heart, such +a scientific prolongation of life that the instinct for self- +preservation will be at last extinct. If that is not the very +"resignation" he imputes to the Buddhist I do not know what it is. +He believes that an individual which has lived fully and completely +may at last welcome death with the same instinctive readiness as, in +the days of its strength, it shows for the embraces of its mate. We +are to be glutted by living to six score and ten. We are to rise +from the table at last as gladly as we sat down. We shall go to +death as unresistingly as tired children go to bed. Men are to have +a life far beyond the range of what is now considered their prime, +and their last period (won by scientific self-control) will be a +period of ripe wisdom (from seventy to eighty to a hundred and +twenty or thereabouts) and public service! + +(But why, one asks, public service? Why not book-collecting or the +simple pleasure of reminiscence so dear to aged egotists? +Metchnikoff never faces that question. And again, what of the man +who is challenged to die for right at the age of thirty? What does +the prolongation of life do for him? And where are the consolations +for accidental misfortune, for the tormenting disease or the lost +limb?) + +But in his peroration Professor Metchnikoff lapses into pure +religiosity. The prolongation of life gives place to sheer self- +sacrifice as the fundamental "remedy." And indeed what other remedy +has ever been conceived for the general evil of life? + + +"On the other hand," he writes, "the knowledge that the goal of +human life can be attained only by the development of a high degree +of solidarity amongst men will restrain actual egotism. The mere +fact that the enjoyment of life according to the precepts of Solomon +(Ecelesiastes ix. 7-10)* is opposed to the goal of human life, will +lessen luxury and the evil that comes from luxury. Conviction that +science alone is able to redress the disharmonies of the human +constitution will lead directly to the improvement of education and +to the solidarity of mankind. + +* Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a +merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be +always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with +the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, +which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity +for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou +takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with +thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor +wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. + +"In progress towards the goal, nature will have to be consulted +continuously. Already, in the case of the ephemerids, nature has +produced a complete cycle of normal life ending in natural death. +In the problem of his own fate, man must not be content with the +gifts of nature; he must direct them by his own efforts. Just as he +has been able to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must +attempt to modify his own constitution, so as to readjust its +disharmonies. . . . + +"To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to +frame the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the +resources of science. + +"If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of +religion of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific +principles. And if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that +man can live by faith alone, the faith must be in the power of +science." + + +Now this, after all the flat repudiations that have preceded it of +"religion" and "philosophy" as remedies for human ills, is nothing +less than the fundamental proposition of the religious life +translated into terms of materialistic science, the proposition that +damnation is really over-individuation and that salvation is escape +from self into the larger being of life. . . . + +What can this "religion of the future" be but that devotion to the +racial adventure under the captaincy of God which we have already +found, like gold in the bottom of the vessel, when we have washed +away the confusions and impurities of dogmatic religion? By an +inquiry setting out from a purely religious starting-point we have +already reached conclusions identical with this ultimate refuge of +an extreme materialist. + +This altar to the Future of his, we can claim as an altar to our +God--an altar rather indistinctly inscribed. + + + +2. SACRIFICE IMPLIES GOD + + +Almost all Agnostic and Atheistical writings that show any fineness +and generosity of spirit, have this tendency to become as it were +the statement of an anonymous God. Everything is said that a +religious writer would say--except that God is not named. Religious +metaphors abound. It is as if they accepted the living body of +religion but denied the bones that held it together--as they might +deny the bones of a friend. It is true, they would admit, the body +moves in a way that implies bones in its every movement, but --WE +HAVE NEVER SEEN THOSE BONES. + +The disputes in theory--I do not say the difference in reality-- +between the modern believer and the atheist or agnostic--becomes at +times almost as impalpable as that subtle discussion dear to +students of physics, whether the scientific "ether" is real or a +formula. Every material phenomenon is consonant with and helps to +define this ether, which permeates and sustains and is all things, +which nevertheless is perceptible to no sense, which is reached only +by an intellectual process. Most minds are disposed to treat this +ether as a reality. But the acutely critical mind insists that what +is only so attainable by inference is not real; it is no more than +"a formula that satisfies all phenomena." + +But if it comes to that, am I anything more than the formula that +satisfies all my forms of consciousness? + +Intellectually there is hardly anything more than a certain will to +believe, to divide the religious man who knows God to be utterly +real, from the man who says that God is merely a formula to satisfy +moral and spiritual phenomena. The former has encountered him, the +other has as yet felt only unassigned impulses. One says God's will +is so; the other that Right is so. One says God moves me to do this +or that; the other the Good Will in me which I share with you and +all well-disposed men, moves me to do this or that. But the former +makes an exterior reference and escapes a risk of self- +righteousness. + +I have recently been reading a book by Mr. Joseph McCabe called "The +Tyranny of Shams," in which he displays very typically this curious +tendency to a sort of religion with God "blacked out." His is an +extremely interesting case. He is a writer who was formerly a Roman +Catholic priest, and in his reaction from Catholicism he displays a +resolution even sterner than Professor Metchnikoff's, to deny that +anything religious or divine can exist, that there can be any aim in +life except happiness, or any guide but "science." But--and here +immediately he turns east again--he is careful not to say +"individual happiness." And he says "Pleasure is, as Epicureans +insisted, only a part of a large ideal of happiness." So he lets +the happiness of devotion and sacrifice creep in. So he opens +indefinite possibilities of getting away from any merely +materialistic rule of life. And he writes: + + +"In every civilised nation the mass of the people are inert and +indifferent. Some even make a pretence of justifying their +inertness. Why, they ask, should we stir at all? Is there such a +thing as a duty to improve the earth? What is the meaning or +purpose of life? Or has it a purpose? + +"One generally finds that this kind of reasoning is merely a piece +of controversial athletics or a thin excuse for idleness. People +tell you that the conflict of science and religion--it would be +better to say, the conflict of modern culture and ancient +traditions--has robbed life of its plain significance. The men who, +like Tolstoi, seriously urge this point fail to appreciate the +modern outlook on life. Certainly modern culture--science, history, +philosophy, and art--finds no purpose in life: that is to say, no +purpose eternally fixed and to be discovered by man. A great +chemist said a few years ago that he could imagine 'a series of +lucky accidents'--the chance blowing by the wind of certain +chemicals into pools on the primitive earth--accounting for the +first appearance of life; and one might not unjustly sum up the +influences which have lifted those early germs to the level of +conscious beings as a similar series of lucky accidents. + +"But it is sheer affectation to say that this demoralises us. If +there is no purpose impressed on the universe, or prefixed to the +development of humanity, it follows only that humanity may choose +its own purpose and set up its own goal; and the most elementary +sense of order will teach us that this choice must be social, not +merely individual. In whatever measure ill-controlled individuals +may yield to personal impulses or attractions, the aim of the race +must be a collective aim. I do not mean an austere demand of self- +sacrifice from the individual, but an adjustment--as genial and +generous as possible--of individual variations for common good. +Otherwise life becomes discordant and futile, and the pain and waste +react on each individual. So we raise again, in the twentieth +century, the old question of 'the greatest good,' which men +discussed in the Stoa Poikile and the suburban groves of Athens, in +the cool atria of patrician mansions on the Palatine and the +Pincian, in the Museum at Alexandria, and the schools which Omar +Khayyam frequented, in the straw-strewn schools of the Middle Ages +and the opulent chambers of Cosimo dei Medici." + + +And again: + + +"The old dream of a co-operative effort to improve life, to bring +happiness to as many minds of mortals as we can reach, shines above +all the mists of the day. Through the ruins of creeds and +philosophies, which have for ages disdained it, we are retracing our +steps toward that height--just as the Athenians did two thousand +years ago. It rests on no metaphysic, no sacred legend, no +disputable tradition--nothing that scepticism can corrode or +advancing knowledge undermine. Its foundations are the fundamental +and unchanging impulses of our nature." + + +And again: + + +"The revolt which burns in so much of the abler literature of our +time is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome +of that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the +general social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor +altruistic. It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an +inspiration in the finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow +which chiefly illumines it is the glow of the great vision of a +happier earth. It speaks of the claims of truth and justice, and +assails untruth and injustice, for these are elemental principles of +social life; but it appeals more confidently to the warmer sympathy +which is linking the scattered children of the race, and it urges +all to co-operate in the restriction of suffering and the creation +of happiness. The advance guard of the race, the men and women in +whom mental alertness is associated with fine feeling, cry that they +have reached Pisgah's slope and in increasing numbers men and women +are pressing on to see if it be really the Promised Land." + + +"Pisgah--the Promised Land!" Mr. McCabe in that passage sounds as +if he were half-way to "Oh! Beulah Land!" and the tambourine. + +That "larger spirit," we maintain, is God; those "impulses" are the +power of God, and Mr. McCabe serves a Master he denies. He has but +to realise fully that God is not necessarily the Triune God of the +Catholic Church, and banish his intense suspicion that he may yet be +lured back to that altar he abandoned, he has but to look up from +that preoccupation, and immediately he will begin to realise the +presence of Divinity. + + + +3. GOD IS AN EXTERNAL REALITY + + +It may be argued that if atheists and agnostics when they set +themselves to express the good will that is in them, do shape out +God, that if their conception of right living falls in so completely +with the conception of God's service as to be broadly identical, +then indeed God, like the ether of scientific speculation, is no +more than a theory, no more than an imaginative externalisation of +man's inherent good will. Why trouble about God then? Is not the +declaration of a good disposition a sufficient evidence of +salvation? What is the difference between such benevolent +unbelievers as Professor Metchnikoff or Mr. McCabe and those who +have found God? + +The difference is this, that the benevolent atheist stands alone +upon his own good will, without a reference, without a standard, +trusting to his own impulse to goodness, relying upon his own moral +strength. A certain immodesty, a certain self-righteousness, hangs +like a precipice above him; incalculable temptations open like gulfs +beneath his feet. He has not really given himself or got away from +himself. He has no one to whom he can give himself. He is still a +masterless man. His exaltation is self-centred, is priggishness, +his fall is unrestrained by any exterior obligation. His devotion +is only the good will in himself, a disposition; it is a mood that +may change. At any moment it may change. He may have pledged +himself to his own pride and honour, but who will hold him to his +bargain? He has no source of strength beyond his own amiable +sentiments, his conscience speaks with an unsupported voice, and no +one watches while he sleeps. He cannot pray; he can but ejaculate. +He has no real and living link with other men of good will. + +And those whose acquiescence in the idea of God is merely +intellectual are in no better case than those who deny God +altogether. They may have all the forms of truth and not divinity. +The religion of the atheist with a God-shaped blank at its heart and +the persuasion of the unconverted theologian, are both like lamps +unlit. The lit lamp has no difference in form from the lamp unlit. +But the lit lamp is alive and the lamp unlit is asleep or dead. + +The difference between the unconverted and the unbeliever and the +servant of the true God is this; it is that the latter has +experienced a complete turning away from self. This only difference +is all the difference in the world. It is the realisation that this +goodness that I thought was within me and of myself and upon which I +rather prided myself, is without me and above myself, and infinitely +greater and stronger than I. It is the immortal and I am mortal. +It is invincible and steadfast in its purpose, and I am weak and +insecure. It is no longer that I, out of my inherent and remarkable +goodness, out of the excellence of my quality and the benevolence of +my heart, give a considerable amount of time and attention to the +happiness and welfare of others--because I choose to do so. On the +contrary I have come under a divine imperative, I am obeying an +irresistible call, I am a humble and willing servant of the +righteousness of God. That altruism which Professor Metchnikoff and +Mr. McCabe would have us regard as the goal and refuge of a broad +and free intelligence, is really the first simple commandment in the +religious life. + + + +4. ANOTHER RELIGIOUS MATERIALIST + + +Now here is a passage from a book, "Evolution and the War," by +Professor Metchnikoff's translator, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, which +comes even closer to our conception of God as an immortal being +arising out of man, and external to the individual man. He has been +discussing that well-known passage of Kant's: "Two things fill my +mind with ever-renewed wonder and awe the more often and deeper I +dwell on them--the starry vault above me, and the moral law within +me." + +From that discussion, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell presently comes to this +most definite and interesting statement: + + +"Writing as a hard-shell Darwinian evolutionist, a lover of the +scalpel and microscope, and of patient, empirical observation, as +one who dislikes all forms of supernaturalism, and who does not +shrink from the implications even of the phrase that thought is a +secretion of the brain as bile is a secretion of the liver, I assert +as a biological fact that the moral law is as real and as external +to man as the starry vault. It has no secure seat in any single man +or in any single nation. It is the work of the blood and tears of +long generations of men. It is not in man, inborn or innate, but is +enshrined in his traditions, in his customs, in his literature and +his religion. Its creation and sustenance are the crowning glory of +man, and his consciousness of it puts him in a high place above the +animal world. Men live and die; nations rise and fall, but the +struggle of individual lives and of individual nations must be +measured not by their immediate needs, but as they tend to the +debasement or perfection of man's great achievement." + + +This is the same reality. This is the same Link and Captain that +this book asserts. It seems to me a secondary matter whether we +call Him "Man's Great Achievement" or "The Son of Man" or the "God +of Mankind" or "God." So far as the practical and moral ends of +life are concerned, it does not matter how we explain or refuse to +explain His presence in our lives. + +There is but one possible gap left between the position of Dr. +Chalmers Mitchell and the position of this book. In this book it is +asserted that GOD RESPONDS, that he GIVES courage and the power of +self-suppression to our weakness. + + + +5. A NOTE ON A LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GILBERT MURRAY + + +Let me now quote and discuss a very beautiful passage from a lecture +upon Stoicism by Professor Gilbert Murray, which also displays the +same characteristic of an involuntary shaping out of God in the +forms of denial. It is a passage remarkable for its conscientious +and resolute Agnosticism. And it is remarkable too for its +blindness to the possibility of separating quite completely the idea +of the Infinite Being from the idea of God. It is another striking +instance of that obsession of modern minds by merely Christian +theology of which I have already complained. Professor Murray has +quoted Mr. Bevan's phrase for God, "the Friend behind phenomena," +and he does not seem to realise that that phrase carries with it no +obligation whatever to believe that this Friend is in control of the +phenomena. He assumes that he is supposed to be in control as if it +were a matter of course: + + +"We do seem to find," Professor Murray writes, "not only in all +religions, but in practically all philosophies, some belief that man +is not quite alone in the universe, but is met in his endeavours +towards the good by some external help or sympathy. We find it +everywhere in the unsophisticated man. We find it in the unguarded +self-revelations of the most severe and conscientious Atheists. +Now, the Stoics, like many other schools of thought, drew an +argument from this consensus of all mankind. It was not an absolute +proof of the existence of the Gods or Providence, but it was a +strong indication. The existence of a common instinctive belief in +the mind of man gives at least a presumption that there must be a +good cause for that belief. + +"This is a reasonable position. There must be some such cause. But +it does not follow that the only valid cause is the truth of the +content of the belief. I cannot help suspecting that this is +precisely one of those points on which Stoicism, in company with +almost all philosophy up to the present time, has gone astray +through not sufficiently realising its dependence on the human mind +as a natural biological product. For it is very important in this +matter to realise that the so-called belief is not really an +intellectual judgment so much as a craving of the whole nature. + +"It is only of very late years that psychologists have begun to +realise the enormous dominion of those forces in man of which he is +normally unconscious. We cannot escape as easily as these brave men +dreamed from the grip of the blind powers beneath the threshold. +Indeed, as I see philosophy after philosophy falling into this +unproven belief in the Friend behind phenomena, as I find that I +myself cannot, except for a moment and by an effort, refrain from +making the same assumption, it seems to me that perhaps here too we +are under the spell of a very old ineradicable instinct. We are +gregarious animals; our ancestors have been such for countless ages. +We cannot help looking out on the world as gregarious animals do; we +see it in terms of humanity and of fellowship. Students of animals +under domestication have shown us how the habits of a gregarious +creature, taken away from his kind, are shaped in a thousand details +by reference to the lost pack which is no longer there--the pack +which a dog tries to smell his way back to all the time he is out +walking, the pack he calls to for help when danger threatens. It is +a strange and touching thing, this eternal hunger of the gregarious +animal for the herd of friends who are not there. And it may be, it +may very possibly be, that, in the matter of this Friend behind +phenomena our own yearning and our own almost ineradicable +instinctive conviction, since they are certainly not founded on +either reason or observation, are in origin the groping of a lonely- +souled gregarious animal to find its herd or its herd-leader in the +great spaces between the stars. + +"At any rate, it is a belief very difficult to get rid of." + + +There the passage and the lecture end. + +I would urge that here again is an inadvertent witness to the +reality of God. + +Professor Murray writes of gregarious animals as though there +existed solitary animals that are not gregarious, pure +individualists, "atheists" so to speak, and as though this appeal to +a life beyond one's own was not the universal disposition of living +things. His classical training disposes him to a realistic +exaggeration of individual difference. But nearly every animal, and +certainly every mentally considerable animal, begins under parental +care, in a nest or a litter, mates to breed, and is associated for +much of its life. Even the great carnivores do not go alone except +when they are old and have done with the most of life. Every pack, +every herd, begins at some point in a couple, it is the equivalent +of the tiger's litter if that were to remain undispersed. And it is +within the memory of men still living that in many districts the +African lion has with a change of game and conditions lapsed from a +"solitary" to a gregarious, that is to say a prolonged family habit +of life. + +Man too, if in his ape-like phase he resembled the other higher +apes, is an animal becoming more gregarious and not less. He has +passed within the historical period from a tribal gregariousness to +a nearly cosmopolitan tolerance. And he has his tribe about him. +He is not, as Professor Murray seems to suggest, a solitary LOST +gregarious beast. Why should his desire for God be regarded as the +overflow of an unsatisfied gregarious instinct, when he has home, +town, society, companionship, trade union, state, INCREASINGLY at +hand to glut it? Why should gregariousness drive a man to God +rather than to the third-class carriage and the public-house? Why +should gregariousness drive men out of crowded Egyptian cities into +the cells of the Thebaid? Schopenhauer in a memorable passage +(about the hedgehogs who assembled for warmth) is flatly opposed to +Professor Murray, and seems far more plausible when he declares that +the nature of man is insufficiently gregarious. The parallel with +the dog is not a valid one. + +Does not the truth lie rather in the supposition that it is not the +Friend that is the instinctive delusion but the isolation? Is not +the real deception, our belief that we are completely +individualised, and is it not possible that this that Professor +Murray calls "instinct" is really not a vestige but a new thing +arising out of our increasing understanding, an intellectual +penetration to that greater being of the species, that vine, of +which we are the branches? Why should not the soul of the species, +many faceted indeed, be nevertheless a soul like our own? + +Here, as in the case of Professor Metchnikoff, and in many other +cases of atheism, it seems to me that nothing but an inadequate +understanding of individuation bars the way to at least the +intellectual recognition of the true God. + + + +6. RELIGION AS ETHICS + + +And while I am dealing with rationalists, let me note certain recent +interesting utterances of Sir Harry Johnston's. You will note that +while in this book we use the word "God" to indicate the God of the +Heart, Sir Harry uses "God" for that idea of God-of-the-Universe, +which we have spoken of as the Infinite Being. This use of the word +"God" is of late theological origin; the original identity of the +words "good" and "god" and all the stories of the gods are against +him. But Sir Harry takes up God only to define him away into +incomprehensible necessity. Thus: + + +"We know absolutely nothing concerning the Force we call God; and, +assuming such an intelligent ruling force to be in existence, +permeating this universe of millions of stars and (no doubt) tens of +millions of planets, we do not know under what conditions and +limitations It works. We are quite entitled to assume that the end +of such an influence is intended to be order out of chaos, happiness +and perfection out of incompleteness and misery; and we are entitled +to identify the reactionary forces of brute Nature with the +anthropomorphic Devil of primitive religions, the power of darkness +resisting the power of light. But in these conjectures we must +surely come to the conclusion that the theoretical potency we call +'God' makes endless experiments, and scrap-heaps the failures. +Think of the Dinosaurs and the expenditure of creative energy that +went to their differentiation and their well-nigh incredible physical +development. . . . + +"To such a Divine Force as we postulate, the whole development and +perfecting of life on this planet, the whole production of man, may +seem little more than to any one of us would be the chipping out, +the cutting, the carving, and the polishing of a gem; and we should +feel as little remorse or pity for the scattered dust and fragments +as must the Creative Force of the immeasurably vast universe feel +for the DISJECTA MEMBRA of perfected life on this planet. . . ." + + +But thence he goes on to a curiously imperfect treatment of the God +of man as if he consisted in nothing more than some vague sort of +humanitarianism. Sir Harry's ideas are much less thoroughly thought +out than those of any other of these sceptical writers I have +quoted. On that account they are perhaps more typical. He speaks +as though Christ were simply an eminent but ill-reported and +abominably served teacher of ethics--and yet of the only right ideal +and ethics. He speaks as though religions were nothing more than +ethical movements, and as though Christianity were merely someone +remarking with a bright impulsiveness that everything was simply +horrid, and so, "Let us instal loving kindness as a cardinal axiom. +He ignores altogether the fundamental essential of religion, which +is THE DEVELOPMENT AND SYNTHESIS OF THE DIVERGENT AND CONFLICTING +MOTIVES OF THE UNCONVERTED LIFE, AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE +INDIVIDUAL LIFE WITH THE IMMORTAL PURPOSE OF GOD. He presents a +conception of religion relieved of its "nonsense" as the cheerful +self-determination of a number of bright little individuals (much +stirred but by no means overcome by Cosmic Pity) to the Service of +Man. As he seems to present it, it is as outward a thing, it goes +as little into the intimacy of their lives, as though they had after +proper consideration agreed to send a subscription to a Red Cross +Ambulance or take part in a public demonstration against the +Armenian Massacres, or do any other rather nice-spirited exterior +thing. This is what he says: + + +"I hope that the religion of the future will devote itself wholly to +the Service of Man. It can do so without departing from the +Christian ideal and Christian ethics. It need only drop all that is +silly and disputable, and 'mattering not neither here nor there,' of +Christian theology--a theology virtually absent from the direct +teaching of Christ--and all of Judaistic literature or prescriptions +not made immortal in their application by unassailable truth and by +the confirmation of science. An excellent remedy for the nonsense +which still clings about religion may be found in two books: Cotter +Monson's 'Service of Man,' which was published as long ago as 1887, +and has since been re-issued by the Rationalist Press Association in +its well-known sixpenny series, and J. Allanson Picton's 'Man and +the Bible.' Similarly, those who wish to acquire a sane view of the +relations between man and God would do well to read Winwood Reade's +'Martyrdom of Man.'" + + +Sir Harry in fact clears the ground for God very ably, and then +makes a well-meaning gesture in the vacant space. There is no help +nor strength in his gesture unless God is there. Without God, the +"Service of Man" is no better than a hobby or a sentimentality or an +hypocrisy in the undisciplined prison of the mortal life. + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE INVISIBLE KING + + +1. MODERN RELIGION A POLITICAL RELIGION + + +The conception of a young and energetic God, an Invisible Prince +growing in strength and wisdom, who calls men and women to his +service and who gives salvation from self and mortality only through +self-abandonment to his service, necessarily involves a demand for a +complete revision and fresh orientation of the life of the convert. + +God faces the blackness of the Unknown and the blind joys and +confusions and cruelties of Life, as one who leads mankind through a +dark jungle to a great conquest. He brings mankind not rest but a +sword. It is plain that he can admit no divided control of the +world he claims. He concedes nothing to Caesar. In our philosophy +there are no human things that are God's and others that are +Caesar's. Those of the new thought cannot render unto God the +things that are God's, and to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. +Whatever claim Caesar may make to rule men's lives and direct their +destinies outside the will of God, is a usurpation. No king nor +Caesar has any right to tax or to service or to tolerance, except he +claim as one who holds for and under God. And he must make good his +claim. The steps of the altar of the God of Youth are no safe place +for the sacrilegious figure of a king. Who claims "divine right" +plays with the lightning. + +The new conceptions do not tolerate either kings or aristocracies or +democracies. Its implicit command to all its adherents is to make +plain the way to the world theocracy. Its rule of life is the +discovery and service of the will of God, which dwells in the hearts +of men, and the performance of that will, not only in the private +life of the believer but in the acts and order of the state and +nation of which he is a part. I give myself to God not only because +I am so and so but because I am mankind. I become in a measure +responsible for every evil in the world of men. I become a knight +in God's service. I become my brother's keeper. I become a +responsible minister of my King. I take sides against injustice, +disorder, and against all those temporal kings, emperors, princes, +landlords, and owners, who set themselves up against God's rule and +worship. Kings, owners, and all who claim rule and decisions in the +world's affairs, must either show themselves clearly the fellow- +servants of the believer or become the objects of his steadfast +antagonism. + + + +2. THE WILL OF GOD + + +It is here that those who explain this modern religiosity will seem +most arbitrary to the inquirer. For they relate of God, as men will +relate of a close friend, his dispositions, his apparent intentions, +the aims of his kingship. And just as they advance no proof +whatever of the existence of God but their realisation of him, so +with regard to these qualities and dispositions they have little +argument but profound conviction. What they say is this; that if +you do not feel God then there is no persuading you of him; we +cannot win over the incredulous. And what they say of his qualities +is this; that if you feel God then you will know, you will realise +more and more clearly, that thus and thus and no other is his method +and intention. + +It comes as no great shock to those who have grasped the full +implications of the statement that God is Finite, to hear it +asserted that the first purpose of God is the attainment of clear +knowledge, of knowledge as a means to more knowledge, and of +knowledge as a means to power. For that he must use human eyes and +hands and brains. + +And as God gathers power he uses it to an end that he is only +beginning to apprehend, and that he will apprehend more fully as +time goes on. But it is possible to define the broad outlines of +the attainment he seeks. It is the conquest of death. + +It is the conquest of death; first the overcoming of death in the +individual by the incorporation of the motives of his life into an +undying purpose, and then the defeat of that death that seems to +threaten our species upon a cooling planet beneath a cooling sun. +God fights against death in every form, against the great death of +the race, against the petty death of indolence, insufficiency, +baseness, misconception, and perversion. He it is and no other who +can deliver us "from the body of this death." This is the battle +that grows plainer; this is the purpose to which he calls us out of +the animal's round of eating, drinking, lusting, quarrelling and +laughing and weeping, fearing and failing, and presently of wearying +and dying, which is the whole life that living without God can give +us. And from these great propositions there follow many very +definite maxims and rules of life for those who serve God. These we +will immediately consider. + + + +3. THE CRUCIFIX + + +But first let me write a few words here about those who hold a kind +of intermediate faith between the worship of the God of Youth and +the vaguer sort of Christianity. There are a number of people +closely in touch with those who have found the new religion who, +biased probably by a dread of too complete a break with +Christianity, have adopted a theogony which is very reminiscent of +Gnosticism and of the Paulician, Catharist, and kindred sects to +which allusion has already been made. He, who is called in this +book God, they would call God-the-Son or Christ, or the Logos; and +what is here called the Darkness or the Veiled Being, they would +call God-the-Father. And what we speak of here as Life, they would +call, with a certain disregard of the poor brutes that perish, Man. +And they would assert, what we of the new belief, pleading our +profound ignorance, would neither assert nor deny, that that +Darkness, out of which came Life and God, since it produced them +must be ultimately sympathetic and of like nature with them. And +that ultimately Man, being redeemed and led by Christ and saved from +death by him, would be reconciled with God the Father.* And this +great adventurer out of the hearts of man that we here call God, +they would present as the same with that teacher from Galilee who +was crucified at Jerusalem. + +* This probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for him is +the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and chiefly in the mind +of man. Through him we reach the blessedness of an intuitive +knowledge of God. Salvation is an escape from the "inadequate" +ideas of the mortal human personality to the "adequate" and timeless +ideas of God. + +Now we of the modern way would offer the following criticisms upon +this apparent compromise between our faith and the current religion. +Firstly, we do not presume to theorise about the nature of the +veiled being nor about that being's relations to God and to Life. +We do not recognise any consistent sympathetic possibilities between +these outer beings and our God. Our God is, we feel, like +Prometheus, a rebel. He is unfilial. And the accepted figure of +Jesus, instinct with meek submission, is not in the tone of our +worship. It is not by suffering that God conquers death, but by +fighting. Incidentally our God dies a million deaths, but the thing +that matters is not the deaths but the immortality. It may be he +cannot escape in this person or that person being nailed to a cross +or chained to be torn by vultures on a rock. These may be necessary +sufferings, like hunger and thirst in a campaign; they do not in +themselves bring victory. They may be necessary, but they are not +glorious. The symbol of the crucifixion, the drooping, pain- +drenched figure of Christ, the sorrowful cry to his Father, "My God, +my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" these things jar with our +spirit. We little men may well fail and repent, but it is our faith +that our God does not fail us nor himself. We cannot accept the +Christian's crucifix, or pray to a pitiful God. We cannot accept +the Resurrection as though it were an after-thought to a bitterly +felt death. Our crucifix, if you must have a crucifix, would show +God with a hand or a foot already torn away from its nail, and with +eyes not downcast but resolute against the sky; a face without pain, +pain lost and forgotten in the surpassing glory of the struggle and +the inflexible will to live and prevail. . . . + +But we do not care how long the thorns are drawn, nor how terrible +the wounds, so long as he does not droop. God is courage. God is +courage beyond any conceivable suffering. + +But when all this has been said, it is well to add that it concerns +the figure of Christ only in so far as that professes to be the +figure of God, and the crucifix only so far as that stands for +divine action. The figure of Christ crucified, so soon as we think +of it as being no more than the tragic memorial of Jesus, of the man +who proclaimed the loving-kindness of God and the supremacy of God's +kingdom over the individual life, and who, in the extreme agony of +his pain and exhaustion, cried out that he was deserted, becomes +something altogether distinct from a theological symbol. +Immediately that we cease to worship, we can begin to love and pity. +Here was a being of extreme gentleness and delicacy and of great +courage, of the utmost tolerance and the subtlest sympathy, a saint +of non-resistance. . . . + +We of the new faith repudiate the teaching of non-resistance. We +are the militant followers of and participators in a militant God. +We can appreciate and admire the greatness of Christ, this gentle +being upon whose nobility the theologians trade. But submission is +the remotest quality of all from our God, and a moribund figure is +the completest inversion of his likeness as we know him. A +Christianity which shows, for its daily symbol, Christ risen and +trampling victoriously upon a broken cross, would be far more in the +spirit of our worship.* + +* It is curious, after writing the above, to find in a letter +written by Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, to that pertinacious +correspondent, the late Lady Victoria Welby, almost exactly the same +sentiments I have here expressed. "If I could fill the Crucifix +with life as you do," he says, "I would gladly look on it, but the +fallen Head and the closed Eye exclude from my thought the idea of +glorified humanity. The Christ to whom we are led is One who 'hath +been crucified,' who hath passed the trial victoriously and borne +the fruits to heaven. I dare not then rest on this side of the +glory." + +I find, too, a still more remarkable expression of the modern spirit +in a tract, "The Call of the Kingdom," by that very able and subtle, +Anglican theologian, the Rev. W. Temple, who declares that under the +vitalising stresses of the war we are winning "faith in Christ as an +heroic leader. We have thought of Him so much as meek and gentle +that there is no ground in our picture of Him, for the vision which +His disciple had of Him: 'His head and His hair were white, as white +wool, white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire: and His +feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a +furnace; and His voice was as the voice of many waters. And He had +in His right hand seven stars; and out of His mouth proceeded a +sharp two-edged sword; and His countenance was as the sun shineth in +its strength.'" + +These are both exceptional utterances, interesting as showing how +clearly parallel are the tendencies within and without Christianity. + + + +4. THE PRIMARY DUTIES + + +Now it follows very directly from the conception of God as a finite +intelligence of boundless courage and limitless possibilities of +growth and victory, who has pitted himself against death, who stands +close to our inmost beings ready to receive us and use us, to rescue +us from the chagrins of egotism and take us into his immortal +adventure, that we who have realised him and given ourselves +joyfully to him, must needs be equally ready and willing to give our +energies to the task we share with him, to do our utmost to increase +knowledge, to increase order and clearness, to fight against +indolence, waste, disorder, cruelty, vice, and every form of his and +our enemy, death, first and chiefest in ourselves but also in all +mankind, and to bring about the establishment of his real and +visible kingdom throughout the world. + +And that idea of God as the Invisible King of the whole world means +not merely that God is to be made and declared the head of the +world, but that the kingdom of God is to be present throughout the +whole fabric of the world, that the Kingdom of God is to be in the +teaching at the village school, in the planning of the railway +siding of the market town, in the mixing of the mortar at the +building of the workman's house. It means that ultimately no effigy +of intrusive king or emperor is to disfigure our coins and stamps +any more; God himself and no delegate is to be represented wherever +men buy or sell, on our letters and our receipts, a perpetual +witness, a perpetual reminder. There is no act altogether without +significance, no power so humble that it may not be used for or +against God, no life but can orient itself to him. To realise God +in one's heart is to be filled with the desire to serve him, and the +way of his service is neither to pull up one's life by the roots nor +to continue it in all its essentials unchanged, but to turn it +about, to turn everything that there is in it round into his way. + +The outward duty of those who serve God must vary greatly with the +abilities they possess and the positions in which they find +themselves, but for all there are certain fundamental duties; a +constant attempt to be utterly truthful with oneself, a constant +sedulousness to keep oneself fit and bright for God's service, and +to increase one's knowledge and powers, and a hidden persistent +watchfulness of one's baser motives, a watch against fear and +indolence, against vanity, against greed and lust, against envy, +malice, and uncharitableness. To have found God truly does in +itself make God's service one's essential motive, but these evils +lurk in the shadows, in the lassitudes and unwary moments. No one +escapes them altogether, there is no need for tragic moods on +account of imperfections. We can no more serve God without blunders +and set-backs than we can win battles without losing men. But the +less of such loss the better. The servant of God must keep his mind +as wide and sound and his motives as clean as he can, just as an +operating surgeon must keep his nerves and muscles as fit and his +hands as clean as he can. Neither may righteously evade exercise +and regular washing--of mind as of hands. An incessant watchfulness +of one's self and one's thoughts and the soundness of one's +thoughts; cleanliness, clearness, a wariness against indolence and +prejudice, careful truth, habitual frankness, fitness and steadfast +work; these are the daily fundamental duties that every one who +truly comes to God will, as a matter of course, set before himself. + + + +5. THE INCREASING KINGDOM + + +Now of the more intimate and personal life of the believer it will +be more convenient to write a little later. Let us for the present +pursue the idea of this world-kingdom of God, to whose establishment +he calls us. This kingdom is to be a peaceful and co-ordinated +activity of all mankind upon certain divine ends. These, we +conceive, are first, the maintenance of the racial life; secondly, +the exploration of the external being of nature as it is and as it +has been, that is to say history and science; thirdly, that +exploration of inherent human possibility which is art; fourthly, +that clarification of thought and knowledge which is philosophy; and +finally, the progressive enlargement and development of the racial +life under these lights, so that God may work through a continually +better body of humanity and through better and better equipped +minds, that he and our race may increase for ever, working +unendingly upon the development of the powers of life and the +mastery of the blind forces of matter throughout the deeps of space. +He sets out with us, we are persuaded, to conquer ourselves and our +world and the stars. And beyond the stars our eyes can as yet see +nothing, our imaginations reach and fail. Beyond the limits of our +understanding is the veiled Being of Fate, whose face is hidden from +us. . . . + +It may be that minds will presently appear among us of such a +quality that the face of that Unknown will not be altogether +hidden. . . . + +But the business of such ordinary lives as ours is the setting up of +this earthly kingdom of God. That is the form into which our lives +must fall and our consciences adapt themselves. + +Belief in God as the Invisible King brings with it almost +necessarily a conception of this coming kingdom of God on earth. +Each believer as he grasps this natural and immediate consequence of +the faith that has come into his life will form at the same time a +Utopian conception of this world changed in the direction of God's +purpose. The vision will follow the realisation of God's true +nature and purpose as a necessary second step. And he will begin to +develop the latent citizen of this world-state in himself. He will +fall in with the idea of the world-wide sanities of this new order +being drawn over the warring outlines of the present, and of men +falling out of relationship with the old order and into relationship +with the new. Many men and women are already working to-day at +tasks that belong essentially to God's kingdom, tasks that would be +of the same essential nature if the world were now a theocracy; for +example, they are doing or sustaining scientific research or +education or creative art; they are making roads to bring men +together, they are doctors working for the world's health, they are +building homes, they are constructing machinery to save and increase +the powers of men. . . . + +Such men and women need only to change their orientation as men will +change about at a work-table when the light that was coming in a +little while ago from the southern windows, begins presently to come +in chiefly from the west, to become open and confessed servants of +God. This work that they were doing for ambition, or the love of +men or the love of knowledge or what seemed the inherent impulse to +the work itself, or for money or honour or country or king, they +will realise they are doing for God and by the power of God. Self- +transformation into a citizen of God's kingdom and a new realisation +of all earthly politics as no more than the struggle to define and +achieve the kingdom of God in the earth, follow on, without any need +for a fresh spiritual impulse, from the moment when God and the +believer meet and clasp one another. + +This transfiguration of the world into a theocracy may seem a merely +fantastic idea to anyone who comes to it freshly without such +general theological preparation as the preceding pages have made. +But to anyone who has been at the pains to clear his mind even a +little from the obsession of existing but transitory things, it +ceases to be a mere suggestion and becomes more and more manifestly +the real future of mankind. From the phase of "so things should +be," the mind will pass very rapidly to the realisation that "so +things will be." Towards this the directive wills among men have +been drifting more and more steadily and perceptibly and with fewer +eddyings and retardations, for many centuries. The purpose of +mankind will not be always thus confused and fragmentary. This +dissemination of will-power is a phase. The age of the warring +tribes and kingdoms and empires that began a hundred centuries or so +ago, draws to its close. The kingdom of God on earth is not a +metaphor, not a mere spiritual state, not a dream, not an uncertain +project; it is the thing before us, it is the close and inevitable +destiny of mankind. + +In a few score years the faith of the true God will be spreading +about the world. The few halting confessions of God that one hears +here and there to-day, like that little twittering of birds which +comes before the dawn, will have swollen to a choral unanimity. In +but a few centuries the whole world will be openly, confessedly, +preparing for the kingdom. In but a few centuries God will have led +us out of the dark forest of these present wars and confusions into +the open brotherhood of his rule. + + + +6. WHAT IS MY PLACE IN THE KINGDOM? + + +This conception of the general life of mankind as a transformation +at thousands of points of the confused, egotistical, proprietary, +partisan, nationalist, life-wasting chaos of human life to-day into +the coherent development of the world kingdom of God, provides the +form into which everyone who comes to the knowledge of God will +naturally seek to fit his every thought and activity. The material +greeds, the avarice, fear, rivalries, and ignoble ambitions of a +disordered world will be challenged and examined under one general +question: "What am I in the kingdom of God?" + +It has already been suggested that there is a great and growing +number of occupations that belong already to God's kingdom, +research, teaching, creative art, creative administration, +cultivation, construction, maintenance, and the honest satisfaction +of honest practical human needs. For such people conversion to the +intimacy of God means at most a change in the spirit of their work, +a refreshed energy, a clearer understanding, a new zeal, a completer +disregard of gains and praises and promotion. Pay, honours, and the +like cease to be the inducement of effort. Service, and service +alone, is the criterion that the quickened conscience will +recognise. + +Most of such people will find themselves in positions in which +service is mingled with activities of a baser sort, in which service +is a little warped and deflected by old traditions and usage, by +mercenary and commercial considerations, by some inherent or special +degradation of purpose. The spirit of God will not let the believer +rest until his life is readjusted and as far as possible freed from +the waste of these base diversions. For example a scientific +investigator, lit and inspired by great inquiries, may be hampered +by the conditions of his professorship or research fellowship, which +exact an appearance of "practical" results. Or he may be obliged to +lecture or conduct classes. He may be able to give but half his +possible gift to the work of his real aptitude, and that at a +sacrifice of money and reputation among short-sighted but +influential contemporaries. Well, if he is by nature an +investigator he will know that the research is what God needs of +him. He cannot continue it at all if he leaves his position, and so +he must needs waste something of his gift to save the rest. But +should a poorer or a humbler post offer him better opportunity, +there lies his work for God. There one has a very common and simple +type of the problems that will arise in the lives of men when they +are lit by sudden realisation of the immediacy of God. + +Akin to that case is the perplexity of any successful physician +between the increase of knowledge and the public welfare on the one +hand, and the lucrative possibilities of his practice among wealthy +people on the other. He belongs to a profession that is crippled by +a mediaeval code, a profession which was blind to the common +interest of the Public Health and regarded its members merely as +skilled practitioners employed to "cure" individual ailments. Very +slowly and tortuously do the methods of the profession adapt +themselves to the modern conception of an army of devoted men +working as a whole under God for the health of mankind as a whole, +broadening out from the frowsy den of the "leech," with its +crocodile and bottles and hieroglyphic prescriptions, to a skilled +and illuminating co-operation with those who deal with the food and +housing and economic life of the community. + +And again quite parallel with these personal problems is the trouble +of the artist between the market and vulgar fame on the one hand and +his divine impulse on the other. + +The presence of God will be a continual light and help in every +decision that must be made by men and women in these more or less +vitiated, but still fundamentally useful and righteous, positions. + +The trouble becomes more marked and more difficult in the case of a +man who is a manufacturer or a trader, the financier of business +enterprise or the proprietor of great estates. The world is in need +of manufactures and that goods should be distributed; land must be +administered and new economic possibilities developed. The drift of +things is in the direction of state ownership and control, but in a +great number of cases the state is not ripe for such undertakings, +it commands neither sufficient integrity nor sufficient ability, and +the proprietor of factory, store, credit or land, must continue in +possession, holding as a trustee for God and, so far as lies in his +power, preparing for his supersession by some more public +administration. Modern religion admits of no facile flights from +responsibility. It permits no headlong resort to the wilderness and +sterile virtue. It counts the recluse who fasts among scorpions in +a cave as no better than a deserter in hiding. It unhesitatingly +forbids any rich young man to sell all that he has and give to the +poor. Himself and all that he has must be alike dedicated to God. + +The plain duty that will be understood by the proprietor of land and +of every sort of general need and service, so soon as he becomes +aware of God, is so to administer his possessions as to achieve the +maximum of possible efficiency, the most generous output, and the +least private profit. He may set aside a salary for his +maintenance; the rest he must deal with like a zealous public +official. And if he perceives that the affair could be better +administered by other hands than his own, then it is his business to +get it into those hands with the smallest delay and the least profit +to himself. . . . + +The rights and wrongs of human equity are very different from right +and wrong in the sight of God. In the sight of God no landlord has +a RIGHT to his rent, no usurer has a RIGHT to his interest. A man +is not justified in drawing the profits from an advantageous +agreement nor free to spend the profits of a speculation as he will. +God takes no heed of savings nor of abstinence. He recognises no +right to the "rewards of abstinence," no right to any rewards. +Those profits and comforts and consolations are the inducements that +dangle before the eyes of the spiritually blind. Wealth is an +embarrassment to the religious, for God calls them to account for +it. The servant of God has no business with wealth or power except +to use them immediately in the service of God. Finding these things +in his hands he is bound to administer them in the service of God. + +The tendency of modern religion goes far beyond the alleged +communism of the early Christians, and far beyond the tithes of the +scribes and Pharisees. God takes all. He takes you, blood and +bones and house and acres, he takes skill and influence and +expectations. For all the rest of your life you are nothing but +God's agent. If you are not prepared for so complete a surrender, +then you are infinitely remote from God. You must go your way. +Here you are merely a curious interloper. Perhaps you have been +desiring God as an experience, or coveting him as a possession. You +have not begun to understand. This that we are discussing in this +book is as yet nothing for you. + + + +7. ADJUSTING LIFE + + +This picturing of a human world more to the mind of God than this +present world and the discovery and realisation of one's own place +and work in and for that kingdom of God, is the natural next phase +in the development of the believer. He will set about revising and +adjusting his scheme of life, his ways of living, his habits and his +relationships in the light of his new convictions. + +Most men and women who come to God will have already a certain +righteousness in their lives; these things happen like a thunderclap +only in strange exceptional cases, and the same movements of the +mind that have brought them to God will already have brought their +lives into a certain rightness of direction and conduct. Yet +occasionally there will be someone to whom the self-examination that +follows conversion will reveal an entirely wrong and evil way of +living. It may be that the light has come to some rich idler doing +nothing but follow a pleasurable routine. Or to someone following +some highly profitable and amusing, but socially useless or socially +mischievous occupation. One may be an advocate at the disposal of +any man's purpose, or an actor or actress ready to fall in with any +theatrical enterprise. Or a woman may find herself a prostitute or +a pet wife, a mere kept instrument of indulgence. These are lives +of prey, these are lives of futility; the light of God will not +tolerate such lives. Here religion can bring nothing but a +severance from the old way of life altogether, a break and a +struggle towards use and service and dignity. + +But even here it does not follow that because a life has been wrong +the new life that begins must be far as the poles asunder from the +old. Every sort of experience that has ever come to a human being +is in the self that he brings to God, and there is no reason why a +knowledge of evil ways should not determine the path of duty. No +one can better devise protections against vices than those who have +practised them; none know temptations better than those who have +fallen. If a man has followed an evil trade, it becomes him to use +his knowledge of the tricks of that trade to help end it. He knows +the charities it may claim and the remedies it needs. . . . + +A very interesting case to discuss in relation to this question of +adjustment is that of the barrister. A practising barrister under +contemporary conditions does indeed give most typically the +opportunity for examining the relation of an ordinary self- +respecting worldly life, to life under the dispensation of God +discovered. A barrister is usually a man of some energy and +ambition, his honour is moulded by the traditions of an ancient and +antiquated profession, instinctively self-preserving and yet with a +real desire for consistency and respect. As a profession it has +been greedy and defensively conservative, but it has never been +shameless nor has it ever broken faith with its own large and +selfish, but quite definite, propositions. It has never for +instance had the shamelessness of such a traditionless and +undisciplined class as the early factory organisers. It has never +had the dull incoherent wickedness of the sort of men who exploit +drunkenness and the turf. It offends within limits. Barristers can +be, and are, disbarred. But it is now a profession extraordinarily +out of date; its code of honour derives from a time of cruder and +lower conceptions of human relationship. It apprehends the State as +a mere "ring" kept about private disputations; it has not begun to +move towards the modern conception of the collective enterprise as +the determining criterion of human conduct. It sees its business as +a mere play upon the rules of a game between man and man, or between +men and men. They haggle, they dispute, they inflict and suffer +wrongs, they evade dues, and are liable or entitled to penalties and +compensations. The primary business of the law is held to be +decision in these wrangles, and as wrangling is subject to artistic +elaboration, the business of the barrister is the business of a +professional wrangler; he is a bravo in wig and gown who fights the +duels of ordinary men because they are incapable, very largely on +account of the complexities of legal procedure, of fighting for +themselves. His business is never to explore any fundamental right +in the matter. His business is to say all that can be said for his +client, and to conceal or minimise whatever can be said against his +client. The successful promoted advocate, who in Britain and the +United States of America is the judge, and whose habits and +interests all incline him to disregard the realities of the case in +favour of the points in the forensic game, then adjudicates upon the +contest. . . . + +Now this condition of things is clearly incompatible with the modern +conception of the world as becoming a divine kingdom. When the +world is openly and confessedly the kingdom of God, the law court +will exist only to adjust the differing views of men as to the +manner of their service to God; the only right of action one man +will have against another will be that he has been prevented or +hampered or distressed by the other in serving God. The idea of the +law court will have changed entirely from a place of dispute, +exaction and vengeance, to a place of adjustment. The individual or +some state organisation will plead ON BEHALF OF THE COMMON GOOD +either against some state official or state regulation, or against +the actions or inaction of another individual. This is the only +sort of legal proceedings compatible with the broad beliefs of the +new faith. . . . Every religion that becomes ascendant, in so far +as it is not otherworldly, must necessarily set its stamp upon the +methods and administration of the law. That this was not the case +with Christianity is one of the many contributory aspects that lead +one to the conviction that it was not Christianity that took +possession of the Roman empire, but an imperial adventurer who took +possession of an all too complaisant Christianity. + +Reverting now from these generalisations to the problem of the +religious from which they arose, it will have become evident that +the essential work of anyone who is conversant with the existing +practice and literature of the law and whose natural abilities are +forensic, will lie in the direction of reconstructing the theory and +practice of the law in harmony with modern conceptions, of making +that theory and practice clear and plain to ordinary men, of +reforming the abuses of the profession by working for the separation +of bar and judiciary, for the amalgamation of the solicitors and the +barristers, and the like needed reforms. These are matters that +will probably only be properly set right by a quickening of +conscience among lawyers themselves. Of no class of men is the help +and service so necessary to the practical establishment of God's +kingdom, as of men learned and experienced in the law. And there is +no reason why for the present an advocate should not continue to +plead in the courts, provided he does his utmost only to handle +cases in which he believes he can serve the right. Few righteous +cases are ill-served by a frank disposition on the part of lawyer +and client to put everything before the court. Thereby of course +there arises a difficult case of conscience. What if a lawyer, +believing his client to be in the right, discovers him to be in the +wrong? He cannot throw up the case unless he has been scandalously +deceived, because so he would betray the confidence his client has +put in him to "see him through." He has a right to "give himself +away," but not to "give away" his client in this fashion. If he has +a chance of a private consultation I think he ought to do his best +to make his client admit the truth of the case and give in, but +failing this he has no right to be virtuous on behalf of another. +No man may play God to another; he may remonstrate, but that is the +limit of his right. He must respect a confidence, even if it is +purely implicit and involuntary. I admit that here the barrister is +in a cleft stick, and that he must see the business through +according to the confidence his client has put in him--and +afterwards be as sorry as he may be if an injustice ensues. And +also I would suggest a lawyer may with a fairly good conscience +defend a guilty man as if he were innocent, to save him from +unjustly heavy penalties. . . . + +This comparatively full discussion of the barrister's problem has +been embarked upon because it does bring in, in a very typical +fashion, just those uncertainties and imperfections that abound in +real life. Religious conviction gives us a general direction, but +it stands aside from many of these entangled struggles in the jungle +of conscience. Practice is often easier than a rule. In practice a +lawyer will know far more accurately than a hypothetical case can +indicate, how far he is bound to see his client through, and how far +he may play the keeper of his client's conscience. And nearly every +day there happens instances where the most subtle casuistry will +fail and the finger of conscience point unhesitatingly. One may +have worried long in the preparation and preliminaries of the issue, +one may bring the case at last into the final court of conscience in +an apparently hopeless tangle. Then suddenly comes decision. + +The procedure of that silent, lit, and empty court in which a man +states his case to God, is very simple and perfect. The excuses and +the special pleading shrivel and vanish. In a little while the case +lies bare and plain. + + + +8. THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE + + +The question of oaths of allegiance, acts of acquiescence in +existing governments, and the like, is one that arises at once with +the acceptance of God as the supreme and real King of the Earth. At +the worst Caesar is a usurper, a satrap claiming to be sovereign; at +the best he is provisional. Modern casuistry makes no great trouble +for the believing public official. The chief business of any +believer is to do the work for which he is best fitted, and since +all state affairs are to become the affairs of God's kingdom it is +of primary importance that they should come into the hands of God's +servants. It is scarcely less necessary to a believing man with +administrative gifts that he should be in the public administration, +than that he should breathe and eat. And whatever oath or the like +to usurper church or usurper king has been set up to bar access to +service, is an oath imposed under duress. If it cannot be avoided +it must be taken rather than that a man should become unserviceable. +All such oaths are unfair and foolish things. They exclude no +scoundrels; they are appeals to superstition. Whenever an +opportunity occurs for the abolition of an oath, the servant of God +will seize it, but where the oath is unavoidable he will take it. + +The service of God is not to achieve a delicate consistency of +statement; it is to do as much as one can of God's work. + + + +9. THE PRIEST AND THE CREED + + +It may be doubted if this line of reasoning regarding the official +and his oath can be extended to excuse the priest or pledged +minister of religion who finds that faith in the true God has ousted +his formal beliefs. + +This has been a frequent and subtle moral problem in the +intellectual life of the last hundred years. It has been +increasingly difficult for any class of reading, talking, and +discussing people such as are the bulk of the priesthoods of the +Christian churches to escape hearing and reading the accumulated +criticism of the Trinitarian theology and of the popularly accepted +story of man's fall and salvation. Some have no doubt defeated this +universal and insidious critical attack entirely, and honestly +established themselves in a right-down acceptance of the articles +and disciplines to which they have subscribed and of the creeds they +profess and repeat. Some have recanted and abandoned their +positions in the priesthood. But a great number have neither +resisted the bacillus of criticism nor left the churches to which +they are attached. They have adopted compromises, they have +qualified their creeds with modifying footnotes of essential +repudiation; they have decided that plain statements are metaphors +and have undercut, transposed, and inverted the most vital points of +the vulgarly accepted beliefs. One may find within the Anglican +communion, Arians, Unitarians, Atheists, disbelievers in +immortality, attenuators of miracles; there is scarcely a doubt or a +cavil that has not found a lodgment within the ample charity of the +English Establishment. I have been interested to hear one +distinguished Canon deplore that "they" did not identify the Logos +with the third instead of the second Person of the Trinity, and +another distinguished Catholic apologist declare his indifference to +the "historical Jesus." Within most of the Christian communions one +may believe anything or nothing, provided only that one does not +call too public an attention to one's eccentricity. The late Rev. +Charles Voysey, for example, preached plainly in his church at +Healaugh against the divinity of Christ, unhindered. It was only +when he published his sermons under the provocative title of "The +Sling and the Stone," and caused an outcry beyond the limits of his +congregation, that he was indicted and deprived. + +Now the reasons why these men do not leave the ministry or +priesthood in which they find themselves are often very plausible. +It is probable that in very few cases is the retention of stipend or +incumbency a conscious dishonesty. At the worst it is mitigated by +thought for wife or child. It has only been during very exceptional +phases of religious development and controversy that beliefs have +been really sharp. A creed, like a coin, it may be argued, loses +little in practical value because it is worn, or bears the image of +a vanished king. The religious life is a reality that has clothed +itself in many garments, and the concern of the priest or minister +is with the religious life and not with the poor symbols that may +indeed pretend to express, but do as a matter of fact no more than +indicate, its direction. It is quite possible to maintain that the +church and not the creed is the real and valuable instrument of +religion, that the religious life is sustained not by its +propositions but by its routines. Anyone who seeks the intimate +discussion of spiritual things with professional divines, will find +this is the substance of the case for the ecclesiastical sceptic. +His church, he will admit, mumbles its statement of truth, but where +else is truth? What better formulae are to be found for ineffable +things? And meanwhile--he does good. + +That may be a valid defence before a man finds God. But we who +profess the worship and fellowship of the living God deny that +religion is a matter of ineffable things. The way of God is plain +and simple and easy to understand. + +Therewith the whole position of the conforming sceptic is changed. +If a professional religious has any justification at all for his +professionalism it is surely that he proclaims the nearness and +greatness of God. And these creeds and articles and orthodoxies are +not proclamations but curtains, they are a darkening and confusion +of what should be crystal clear. What compensatory good can a +priest pretend to do when his primary business is the truth and his +method a lie? The oaths and incidental conformities of men who wish +to serve God in the state are on a different footing altogether from +the falsehood and mischief of one who knows the true God and yet +recites to a trustful congregation, foists upon a trustful +congregation, a misleading and ill-phrased Levantine creed. + +Such is the line of thought which will impose the renunciation of +his temporalities and a complete cessation of services upon every +ordained priest and minister as his first act of faith. Once that +he has truly realised God, it becomes impossible for him ever to +repeat his creed again. His course seems plain and clear. It +becomes him to stand up before the flock he has led in error, and to +proclaim the being and nature of the one true God. He must be +explicit to the utmost of his powers. Then he may await his +expulsion. It may be doubted whether it is sufficient for him to go +away silently, making false excuses or none at all for his retreat. +He has to atone for the implicit acquiescences of his conforming +years. + + + +10. THE UNIVERSALISM OF GOD + + +Are any sorts of people shut off as if by inherent necessity from +God? + +This is, so to speak, one of the standing questions of theology; it +reappears with slight changes of form at every period of religious +interest, it is for example the chief issue between the Arminian and +the Calvinist. From its very opening proposition modern religion +sweeps past and far ahead of the old Arminian teachings of Wesleyans +and Methodists, in its insistence upon the entirely finite nature of +God. Arminians seem merely to have insisted that God has +conditioned himself, and by his own free act left men free to accept +or reject salvation. To the realist type of mind--here as always I +use "realist" in its proper sense as the opposite of nominalist--to +the old-fashioned, over-exact and over-accentuating type of mind, +such ways of thinking seem vague and unsatisfying. Just as it +distresses the more downright kind of intelligence with a feeling of +disloyalty to admit that God is not Almighty, so it troubles the +same sort of intelligence to hear that there is no clear line to be +drawn between the saved and the lost. Realists like an exclusive +flavour in their faith. Moreover, it is a natural weakness of +humanity to be forced into extreme positions by argument. It is +probable, as I have already suggested, that the absolute attributes +of God were forced upon Christianity under the stresses of +propaganda, and it is probable that the theory of a super-human +obstinancy beyond salvation arose out of the irritations natural to +theological debate. It is but a step from the realisation that +there are people absolutely unable or absolutely unwilling to see +God as we see him, to the conviction that they are therefore shut +off from God by an invincible soul blindness. + +It is very easy to believe that other people are essentially damned. + +Beyond the little world of our sympathies and comprehension there +are those who seem inaccessible to God by any means within our +experience. They are people answering to the "hard-hearted," to the +"stiff-necked generation" of the Hebrew prophets. They betray and +even confess to standards that seem hopelessly base to us. They +show themselves incapable of any disinterested enthusiasm for beauty +or truth or goodness. They are altogether remote from intelligent +sacrifice. To every test they betray vileness of texture; they are +mean, cold, wicked. There are people who seem to cheat with a +private self-approval, who are ever ready to do harsh and cruel +things, whose use for social feeling is the malignant boycott, and +for prosperity, monopolisation and humiliating display; who seize +upon religion and turn it into persecution, and upon beauty to +torment it on the altars of some joyless vice. We cannot do with +such souls; we have no use for them, and it is very easy indeed to +step from that persuasion to the belief that God has no use for +them. + +And besides these base people there are the stupid people and the +people with minds so poor in texture that they cannot even grasp the +few broad and simple ideas that seem necessary to the salvation we +experience, who lapse helplessly into fetishistic and fearful +conceptions of God, and are apparently quite incapable of +distinguishing between what is practically and what is spiritually +good. + +It is an easy thing to conclude that the only way to God is our way +to God, that he is the privilege of a finer and better sort to which +we of course belong; that he is no more the God of the card-sharper +or the pickpocket or the "smart" woman or the loan-monger or the +village oaf than he is of the swine in the sty. But are we +justified in thus limiting God to the measure of our moral and +intellectual understandings? Because some people seem to me +steadfastly and consistently base or hopelessly and incurably dull +and confused, does it follow that there are not phases, albeit I +have never chanced to see them, of exaltation in the one case and +illumination in the other? And may I not be a little restricting my +perception of Good? While I have been ready enough to pronounce +this or that person as being, so far as I was concerned, thoroughly +damnable or utterly dull, I find a curious reluctance to admit the +general proposition which is necessary for these instances. It is +possible that the difference between Arminian and Calvinist is a +difference of essential intellectual temperament rather than of +theoretical conviction. I am temperamentally Arminian as I am +temperamentally Nominalist. I feel that it must be in the nature of +God to attempt all souls. There must be accessibilities I can only +suspect, and accessibilities of which I know nothing. + +Yet here is a consideration pointing rather the other way. If you +think, as you must think, that you yourself can be lost to God and +damned, then I cannot see how you can avoid thinking that other +people can be damned. But that is not to believe that there are +people damned at the outset by their moral and intellectual +insufficiency; that is not to make out that there is a class of +essential and incurable spiritual defectives. The religious life +preceded clear religious understanding and extends far beyond its +range. + +In my own case I perceive that in spite of the value I attach to +true belief, the reality of religion is not an intellectual thing. +The essential religious fact is in another than the mental sphere. +I am passionately anxious to have the idea of God clear in my own +mind, and to make my beliefs plain and clear to other people, and +particularly to other people who may seem to be feeling with me; I +do perceive that error is evil if only because a faith based on +confused conceptions and partial understandings may suffer +irreparable injury through the collapse of its substratum of ideas. +I doubt if faith can be complete and enduring if it is not secured +by the definite knowledge of the true God. Yet I have also to admit +that I find the form of my own religious emotion paralleled by +people with whom I have no intellectual sympathy and no agreement in +phrase or formula at all. + +There is for example this practical identity of religious feeling +and this discrepancy of interpretation between such an inquirer as +myself and a convert of the Salvation Army. Here, clothing itself +in phrases and images of barbaric sacrifice, of slaughtered lambs +and fountains of precious blood, a most repulsive and +incomprehensible idiom to me, and expressing itself by shouts, +clangour, trumpeting, gesticulations, and rhythmic pacings that stun +and dismay my nerves, I find, the same object sought, release from +self, and the same end, the end of identification with the immortal, +successfully if perhaps rather insecurely achieved. I see God +indubitably present in these excitements, and I see personalities I +could easily have misjudged as too base or too dense for spiritual +understandings, lit by the manifest reflection of divinity. One may +be led into the absurdest underestimates of religious possibilities +if one estimates people only coldly and in the light of everyday +life. There is a sub-intellectual religious life which, very +conceivably, when its utmost range can be examined, excludes nothing +human from religious cooperation, which will use any words to its +tune, which takes its phrasing ready-made from the world about it, +as it takes the street for its temple, and yet which may be at its +inner point in the directest contact with God. Religion may suffer +from aphasia and still be religion; it may utter misleading or +nonsensical words and yet intend and convey the truth. The methods +of the Salvation Army are older than doctrinal Christianity, and may +long survive it. Men and women may still chant of Beulah Land and +cry out in the ecstasy of salvation; the tambourine, that modern +revival of the thrilling Alexandrine sistrum, may still stir dull +nerves to a first apprehension of powers and a call beyond the +immediate material compulsion of life, when the creeds of +Christianity are as dead as the lore of the Druids. + +The emancipation of mankind from obsolete theories and formularies +may be accompanied by great tides of moral and emotional release +among types and strata that by the standards of a trained and +explicit intellectual, may seem spiritually hopeless. It is not +necessary to imagine the whole world critical and lucid in order to +imagine the whole world unified in religious sentiment, +comprehending the same phrases and coming together regardless of +class and race and quality, in the worship and service of the true +God. The coming kingship of God if it is to be more than hieratic +tyranny must have this universality of appeal. As the head grows +clear the body will turn in the right direction. To the mass of men +modern religion says, "This is the God it has always been in your +nature to apprehend." + + + +11. GOD AND THE LOVE AND STATUS OF WOMEN + + +Now that we are discussing the general question of individual +conduct, it will be convenient to take up again and restate in that +relationship, propositions already made very plainly in the second +and third chapters. Here there are several excellent reasons for a +certain amount of deliberate repetition. . . . + +All the mystical relations of chastity, virginity, and the like with +religion, those questions of physical status that play so large a +part in most contemporary religions, have disappeared from modern +faith. Let us be as clear as possible upon this. God is concerned +by the health and fitness and vigour of his servants; we owe him our +best and utmost; but he has no special concern and no special +preferences or commandments regarding sexual things. + +Christ, it is manifest, was of the modern faith in these matters, he +welcomed the Magdalen, neither would he condemn the woman taken in +adultery. Manifestly corruption and disease were not to stand +between him and those who sought God in him. But the Christianity +of the creeds, in this as in so many respects, does not rise to the +level of its founder, and it is as necessary to repeat to-day as +though the name of Christ had not been ascendant for nineteen +centuries, that sex is a secondary thing to religion, and sexual +status of no account in the presence of God. It follows quite +logically that God does not discriminate between man and woman in +any essential things. We leave our individuality behind us when we +come into the presence of God. Sex is not disavowed but forgotten. +Just as one's last meal is forgotten--which also is a difference +between the religious moment of modern faith and certain Christian +sacraments. You are a believer and God is at hand to you; heed not +your state; reach out to him and he is there. In the moment of +religion you are human; it matters not what else you are, male or +female, clean or unclean, Hebrew or Gentile, bond or free. It is +AFTER the moment of religion that we become concerned about our +state and the manner in which we use ourselves. + +We have to follow our reason as our sole guide in our individual +treatment of all such things as food and health and sex. God is the +king of the whole world, he is the owner of our souls and bodies and +all things. He is not particularly concerned about any aspect, +because he is concerned about every aspect. We have to make the +best use of ourselves for his kingdom; that is our rule of life. +That rule means neither painful nor frantic abstinences nor any +forced way of living. Purity, cleanliness, health, none of these +things are for themselves, they are for use; none are magic, all are +means. The sword must be sharp and clean. That does not mean that +we are perpetually to sharpen and clean it--which would weaken and +waste the blade. The sword must neither be drawn constantly nor +always rusting in its sheath. Those who have had the wits and soul +to come to God, will have the wits and soul to find out and know +what is waste, what is vanity, what is the happiness that begets +strength of body and spirit, what is error, where vice begins, and +to avoid and repent and recoil from all those things that degrade. +These are matters not of the rule of life but of the application of +life. They must neither be neglected nor made disproportionally +important. + +To the believer, relationship with God is the supreme relationship. +It is difficult to imagine how the association of lovers and friends +can be very fine and close and good unless the two who love are each +also linked to God, so that through their moods and fluctuations and +the changes of years they can be held steadfast by his undying +steadfastness. But it has been felt by many deep-feeling people +that there is so much kindred between the love and trust of husband +and wife and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to +consider the former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that +close love of mated man and woman, they are so intent upon its +permanence and completeness and to lift the dear relationship out of +the ruck of casual and transitory things, that they want to bring +it, as it were, into the very presence and assent of God. There are +many who dream and desire that they are as deeply and completely +mated as this, many more who would fain be so, and some who are. +And from this comes the earnest desire to make marriage sacramental +and the attempt to impose upon all the world the outward appearance, +the restrictions, the pretence at least of such a sacramental union. + +There may be such a quasi-sacramental union in many cases, but only +after years can one be sure of it; it is not to be brought about by +vows and promises but by an essential kindred and cleaving of body +and spirit; and it concerns only the two who can dare to say they +have it, and God. And the divine thing in marriage, the thing that +is most like the love of God, is, even then, not the relationship of +the man and woman as man and woman but the comradeship and trust and +mutual help and pity that joins them. No doubt that from the mutual +necessities of bodily love and the common adventure, the necessary +honesties and helps of a joint life, there springs the stoutest, +nearest, most enduring and best of human companionship; perhaps only +upon that root can the best of mortal comradeship be got; but it +does not follow that the mere ordinary coming together and pairing +off of men and women is in itself divine or sacramental or anything +of the sort. Being in love is a condition that may have its moments +of sublime exaltation, but it is for the most part an experience far +down the scale below divine experience; it is often love only in so +far as it shares the name with better things; it is greed, it is +admiration, it is desire, it is the itch for excitement, it is the +instinct for competition, it is lust, it is curiosity, it is +adventure, it is jealousy, it is hate. On a hundred scores 'lovers' +meet and part. Thereby some few find true love and the spirit of +God in themselves or others. + +Lovers may love God in one another; I do not deny it. That is no +reason why the imitation and outward form of this great happiness +should be made an obligation upon all men and women who are +attracted by one another, nor why it should be woven into the +essentials of religion. For women much more than for men is this +confusion dangerous, lest a personal love should shape and dominate +their lives instead of God. "He for God only; she for God in him," +phrases the idea of Milton and of ancient Islam; it is the formula +of sexual infatuation, a formula quite easily inverted, as the end +of Goethe's Faust ("The woman soul leadeth us upward and on") may +witness. The whole drift of modern religious feeling is against +this exaggeration of sexual feeling, these moods of sexual +slavishness, in spiritual things. Between the healthy love of +ordinary mortal lovers in love and the love of God, there is an +essential contrast and opposition in this, that preference, +exclusiveness, and jealousy seem to be in the very nature of the +former and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former +is the intensest realisation of which our individualities are +capable; the latter is the way of escape from the limitations of +individuality. It may be true that a few men and more women do +achieve the completest unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly +love. So the poets and romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an +imaginative perversion they have given to some attractive person a +worship that should be reserved for God and a devotion that is +normally evoked only by little children in their mother's heart. It +is not the way between most of the men and women one meets in this +world. + +But between God and the believer there is no other way, there is +nothing else, but self-surrender and the ending of self. + + + +CHAPTER THE SIXTH + +MODERN IDEAS OF SIN AND DAMNATION + + + +1. THE BIOLOGICAL EQUIVALENT OF SIN + + +If the reader who is unfamiliar with scientific things will obtain +and read Metchnikoff's "Nature of Man," he will find there an +interesting summary of the biological facts that bear upon and +destroy the delusion that there is such a thing as individual +perfection, that there is even ideal perfection for humanity. With +an abundance of convincing instances Professor Metchnikoff +demonstrates that life is a system of "disharmonies," capable of no +perfect way, that there is no "perfect" dieting, no "perfect" sexual +life, no "perfect" happiness, no "perfect" conduct. He releases one +from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption that there is even an +ideal "perfection" in organic life. He sweeps out of the mind with +all the confidence and conviction of a physiological specialist, any +idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable perfect man. It +is in the nature of every man to fall short at every point from +perfection. From the biological point of view we are as individuals +a series of involuntary "tries" on the part of an imperfect species +towards an unknown end. + +Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand. +We are disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to +the defects of our souls than it makes an end to the decay of our +teeth or to those vestigial structures of our body that endanger our +physical welfare. Salvation leaves us still disharmonious, and adds +not an inch to our spiritual and moral stature. + + + +2. WHAT IS DAMNATION? + + +Let us now take up the question of what is Sin? and what we mean by +the term "damnation," in the light of this view of human reality. +Most of the great world religions are as clear as Professor +Metchnikoff that life in the world is a tangle of disharmonies, and +in most cases they supply a more or less myth-like explanation, they +declare that evil is one side of the conflict between Ahriman and +Ormazd, or that it is the punishment of an act of disobedience, of +the fall of man and world alike from a state of harmony. Their +case, like his, is that THIS world is damned. + +We do not find the belief that superposed upon the miseries of this +world there are the still bitterer miseries of punishments after +death, so nearly universal. The endless punishments of hell appear +to be an exploit of theory; they have a superadded appearance even +in the Christian system; the same common tendency to superlatives +and absolutes that makes men ashamed to admit that God is finite, +makes them seek to enhance the merits of their Saviour by the device +of everlasting fire. Conquest over the sorrow of life and the fear +of death do not seem to them sufficient for Christ's glory. + +Now the turning round of the modern mind from a conception of the +universe as something derived deductively from the past to a +conception of it as something gathering itself adventurously towards +the future, involves a release from the supposed necessity to tell a +story and explain why. Instead comes the inquiry, "To what end?" +We can say without mental discomfort, these disharmonies are here, +this damnation is here--inexplicably. We can, without any +distressful inquiry into ultimate origins, bring our minds to the +conception of a spontaneous and developing God arising out of those +stresses in our hearts and in the universe, and arising to overcome +them. Salvation for the individual is escape from the individual +distress at disharmony and the individual defeat by death, into the +Kingdom of God. And damnation can be nothing more and nothing less +than the failure or inability or disinclination to make that escape. + +Something of that idea of damnation as a lack of the will for +salvation has crept at a number of points into contemporary +religious thought. It was the fine fancy of Swedenborg that the +damned go to their own hells of their own accord. It underlies a +queer poem, "Simpson," by that interesting essayist upon modern +Christianity, Mr. Clutton Brock, which I have recently read. +Simpson dies and goes to hell--it is rather like the Cromwell Road-- +and approves of it very highly, and then and then only is he +completely damned. Not to realise that one can be damned is +certainly to be damned; such is Mr. Brock's idea. It is his +definition of damnation. Satisfaction with existing things is +damnation. It is surrender to limitation; it is acquiescence in +"disharmony"; it is making peace with that enemy against whom God +fights for ever. + +(But whether there are indeed Simpsons who acquiesce always and for +ever remains for me, as I have already confessed in the previous +chapter, a quite open question. My Arminian temperament turns me +from the Calvinistic conclusion of Mr. Brock's satire.) + + + +3. SIN IS NOT DAMNATION + + +Now the question of sin will hardly concern those damned and lost by +nature, if such there be. Sin is not the same thing as damnation, +as we have just defined damnation. Damnation is a state, but sin is +an incident. One is an essential and the other an incidental +separation from God. It is possible to sin without being damned; +and to be damned is to be in a state when sin scarcely matters, like +ink upon a blackamoor. You cannot have questions of more or less +among absolute things. + +It is the amazing and distressful discovery of every believer so +soon as the first exaltation of belief is past, that one does not +remain always in touch with God. At first it seems incredible that +one should ever have any motive again that is not also God's motive. +Then one finds oneself caught unawares by a base impulse. We +discover that discontinuousness of our apparently homogeneous +selves, the unincorporated and warring elements that seemed at first +altogether absent from the synthesis of conversion. We are tripped +up by forgetfulness, by distraction, by old habits, by tricks of +appearance. There come dull patches of existence; those mysterious +obliterations of one's finer sense that are due at times to the +little minor poisons one eats or drinks, to phases of fatigue, ill- +health and bodily disorder, or one is betrayed by some unanticipated +storm of emotion, brewed deep in the animal being and released by +any trifling accident, such as personal jealousy or lust, or one is +relaxed by contentment into vanity. All these rebel forces of our +ill-coordinated selves, all these "disharmonies," of the inner +being, snatch us away from our devotion to God's service, carry us +off to follies, offences, unkindness, waste, and leave us +compromised, involved, and regretful, perplexed by a hundred +difficulties we have put in our own way back to God. + +This is the personal problem of Sin. Here prayer avails; here God +can help us. From God comes the strength to repent and make such +reparation as we can, to begin the battle again further back and +lower down. From God comes the power to anticipate the struggle +with one's rebel self, and to resist and prevail over it. + + + +4. THE SINS OF THE INSANE + + +An extreme case is very serviceable in such a discussion as this. + +It happens that the author carries on a correspondence with several +lunatics in asylums. There is a considerable freedom of notepaper +in these institutions; the outgoing letters are no doubt censored or +selected in some way, but a proportion at any rate are allowed to go +out to their addresses. As a journalist who signs his articles and +as the author of various books of fiction, as a frequent NAME, that +is, to any one much forced back upon reading, the writer is +particularly accessible to this type of correspondent. The letters +come, some manifesting a hopeless disorder that permits of no reply, +but some being the expression of minds overlaid not at all +offensively by a web of fantasy, and some (and these are the more +touching ones and the ones that most concern us now) as sanely +conceived and expressed as any letters could be. They are written +by people living lives very like the lives of us who are called +"sane," except that they lift to a higher excitement and fall to a +lower depression, and that these extremer phases of mania or +melancholia slip the leash of mental consistency altogether and take +abnormal forms. They tap deep founts of impulse, such as we of the +safer ways of mediocrity do but glimpse under the influence of +drugs, or in dreams and rare moments of controllable extravagance. +Then the insane become "glorious," or they become murderous, or they +become suicidal. All these letter-writers in confinement have +convinced their fellow-creatures by some extravagance that they are +a danger to themselves or others. + +The letters that come from such types written during their sane +intervals, are entirely sane. Some, who are probably unaware--I +think they should know--of the offences or possibilities that +justify their incarceration, write with a certain resentment at +their position; others are entirely acquiescent, but one or two +complain of the neglect of friends and relations. But all are as +manifestly capable of religion and of the religious life as any +other intelligent persons during the lucid interludes that make up +nine-tenths perhaps of their lives. . . . Suppose now one of these +cases, and suppose that the infirmity takes the form of some cruel, +disgusting, or destructive disposition that may become at times +overwhelming, and you have our universal trouble with sinful +tendency, as it were magnified for examination. It is clear that +the mania which defines his position must be the primary if not the +cardinal business in the life of a lunatic, but his problem with +that is different not in kind but merely in degree from the problem +of lusts, vanities, and weaknesses in what we call normal lives. It +is an unconquered tract, a great rebel province in his being, which +refuses to serve God and tries to prevent him serving God, and +succeeds at times in wresting his capital out of his control. But +his relationship to that is the same relationship as ours to the +backward and insubordinate parishes, criminal slums, and disorderly +houses in our own private texture. + +It is clear that the believer who is a lunatic is, as it were, only +the better part of himself. He serves God with this unconquered +disposition in him, like a man who, whatever else he is and does, is +obliged to be the keeper of an untrustworthy and wicked animal. His +beast gets loose. His only resort is to warn those about him when +he feels that jangling or excitement of the nerves which precedes +its escapes, to limit its range, to place weapons beyond its reach. +And there are plenty of human beings very much in his case, whose +beasts have never got loose or have got caught back before their +essential insanity was apparent. And there are those uncertifiable +lunatics we call men and women of "impulse" and "strong passions." +If perhaps they have more self-control than the really mad, yet it +happens oftener with them that the whole intelligent being falls +under the dominion of evil. The passion scarcely less than the +obsession may darken the whole moral sky. Repentance and atonement; +nothing less will avail them after the storm has passed, and the +sedulous preparation of defences and palliatives against the return +of the storm. + +This discussion of the lunatic's case gives us indeed, usefully +coarse and large, the lines for the treatment of every human +weakness by the servants of God. A "weakness," just like the +lunatic's mania, becomes a particular charge under God, a special +duty for the person it affects. He has to minimise it, to isolate +it, to keep it out of mischief. If he can he must adopt preventive +measures. . . . + +These passions and weaknesses that get control of us hamper our +usefulness to God, they are an incessant anxiety and distress to us, +they wound our self-respect and make us incomprehensible to many who +would trust us, they discredit the faith we profess. If they break +through and break through again it is natural and proper that men +and women should cease to believe in our faith, cease to work with +us or to meet us frankly. . . . Our sins do everything evil to us +and through us except separate us from God. + +Yet let there be no mistake about one thing. Here prayer is a +power. Here God can indeed work miracles. A man with the light of +God in his heart can defeat vicious habits, rise again combative and +undaunted after a hundred falls, escape from the grip of lusts and +revenges, make head against despair, thrust back the very onset of +madness. He is still the same man he was before he came to God, +still with his libidinous, vindictive, boastful, or indolent vein; +but now his will to prevail over those qualities can refer to an +exterior standard and an external interest, he can draw upon a +strength, almost boundless, beyond his own. + + + +5. BELIEVE, AND YOU ARE SAVED + + +But be a sin great or small, it cannot damn a man once he has found +God. You may kill and hang for it, you may rob or rape; the moment +you truly repent and set yourself to such atonement and reparation +as is possible there remains no barrier between you and God. +Directly you cease to hide or deny or escape, and turn manfully +towards the consequences and the setting of things right, you take +hold again of the hand of God. Though you sin seventy times seven +times, God will still forgive the poor rest of you. Nothing but +utter blindness of the spirit can shut a man off from God. + +There is nothing one can suffer, no situation so unfortunate, that +it can shut off one who has the thought of God, from God. If you +but lift up your head for a moment out of a stormy chaos of madness +and cry to him, God is there, God will not fail you. A convicted +criminal, frankly penitent, and neither obdurate nor abject, +whatever the evil of his yesterdays, may still die well and bravely +on the gallows to the glory of God. He may step straight from that +death into the immortal being of God. + +This persuasion is the very essence of the religion of the true God. +There is no sin, no state that, being regretted and repented of, can +stand between God and man. + + + +CHAPTER THE SEVENTH + +THE IDEA OF A CHURCH + + + +1. THE WORLD DAWN + + +As yet those who may be counted as belonging definitely to the new +religion are few and scattered and unconfessed, their realisations +are still uncertain and incomplete. But that is no augury for the +continuance of this state of affairs even for the next few decades. +There are many signs that the revival is coming very swiftly, it may +be coming as swiftly as the morning comes after a tropical night. +It may seem at present as though nothing very much were happening, +except for the fact that the old familiar constellations of theology +have become a little pallid and lost something of their multitude of +points. But nothing fades of itself. The deep stillness of the +late night is broken by a stirring, and the morning star of +creedless faith, the last and brightest of the stars, the star that +owes its light to the coming sun is in the sky. + +There is a stirring and a movement. There is a stir, like the stir +before a breeze. Men are beginning to speak of religion without the +bluster of the Christian formulae; they have begun to speak of God +without any reference to Omnipresence, Omniscience, Omnipotence. +The Deists and Theists of an older generation, be it noted, never +did that. Their "Supreme Being" repudiated nothing. He was merely +the whittled stump of the Trinity. It is in the last few decades +that the western mind has slipped loose from this absolutist +conception of God that has dominated the intelligence of Christendom +at least, for many centuries. Almost unconsciously the new thought +is taking a course that will lead it far away from the moorings of +Omnipotence. It is like a ship that has slipped its anchors and +drifts, still sleeping, under the pale and vanishing stars, out to +the open sea. . . . + + + +2. CONVERGENT RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS + + +In quite a little while the whole world may be alive with this +renascent faith. + +For emancipation from the Trinitarian formularies and from a belief +in an infinite God means not merely a great revivification of minds +trained under the decadence of orthodox Christianity, minds which +have hitherto been hopelessly embarrassed by the choice between +pseudo-Christian religion or denial, but also it opens the way +towards the completest understanding and sympathy and participation +with the kindred movements for release and for an intensification of +the religious life, that are going on outside the sphere of the +Christian tradition and influence altogether. Allusion has already +been made to the sympathetic devotional poetry of Rabindranath +Tagore; he stands for a movement in Brahminism parallel with and +assimilable to the worship of the true God of mankind. + +It is too often supposed that the religious tendency of the East is +entirely towards other-worldness, to a treatment of this life as an +evil entanglement and of death as a release and a blessing. It is +too easily assumed that Eastern teaching is wholly concerned with +renunciation, not merely of self but of being, with the escape from +all effort of any sort into an exalted vacuity. This is indeed +neither the spirit of China nor of Islam nor of the every-day life +of any people in the world. It is not the spirit of the Sikh nor of +these newer developments of Hindu thought. It has never been the +spirit of Japan. To-day less than ever does Asia seem disposed to +give up life and the effort of life. Just as readily as Europeans, +do the Asiatics reach out their arms to that fuller life we can +live, that greater intensity of existence, to which we can attain by +escaping from ourselves. All mankind is seeking God. There is not +a nation nor a city in the globe where men are not being urged at +this moment by the spirit of God in them towards the discovery of +God. This is not an age of despair but an age of hope in Asia as in +all the world besides. + +Islam is undergoing a process of revision closely parallel to that +which ransacks Christianity. Tradition and mediaeval doctrines are +being thrust aside in a similar way. There is much probing into the +spirit and intention of the Founder. The time is almost ripe for a +heart-searching Dialogue of the Dead, "How we settled our religions +for ever and ever," between, let us say, Eusebius of Caesarea and +one of Nizam-al-Mulk's tame theologians. They would be drawn +together by the same tribulations; they would be in the closest +sympathy against the temerity of the moderns; they would have a +common courtliness. The Quran is but little read by Europeans; it +is ignorantly supposed to contain many things that it does not +contain; there is much confusion in people's minds between its text +and the ancient Semitic traditions and usages retained by its +followers; in places it may seem formless and barbaric; but what it +has chiefly to tell of is the leadership of one individualised +militant God who claims the rule of the whole world, who favours +neither rank nor race, who would lead men to righteousness. It is +much more free from sacramentalism, from vestiges of the ancient +blood sacrifice, and its associated sacerdotalism, than +Christianity. The religion that will presently sway mankind can be +reached more easily from that starting-point than from the confused +mysteries of Trinitarian theology. Islam was never saddled with a +creed. With the very name "Islam" (submission to God) there is no +quarrel for those who hold the new faith. . . . + +All the world over there is this stirring in the dry bones of the +old beliefs. There is scarcely a religion that has not its Bahaism, +its Modernists, its Brahmo Somaj, its "religion without theology," +its attempts to escape from old forms and hampering associations to +that living and world-wide spiritual reality upon which the human +mind almost instinctively insists. . . . + +It is the same God we all seek; he becomes more and more plainly the +same God. + +So that all this religious stir, which seems so multifold and +incidental and disconnected and confused and entirely ineffective +to-day, may be and most probably will be, in quite a few years a +great flood of religious unanimity pouring over and changing all +human affairs, sweeping away the old priesthoods and tabernacles and +symbols and shrines, the last crumb of the Orphic victim and the +last rag of the Serapeum, and turning all men about into one +direction, as the ships and houseboats swing round together in some +great river with the uprush of the tide. . . . + + + +3. CAN THERE BE A TRUE CHURCH? + + +Among those who are beginning to realise the differences and +identities of the revived religion that has returned to them, +certain questions of organisation and assembly are being discussed. +Every new religious development is haunted by the precedents of the +religion it replaces, and it was only to be expected that among +those who have recovered their faith there should be a search for +apostles and disciples, an attempt to determine sources and to form +original congregations, especially among people with European +traditions. + +These dispositions mark a relapse from understanding. They are +imitative. This time there has been no revelation here or there; +there is no claim to a revelation but simply that God has become +visible. Men have thought and sought until insensibly the fog of +obsolete theology has cleared away. There seems no need therefore +for special teachers or a special propaganda, or any ritual or +observances that will seem to insist upon differences. The +Christian precedent of a church is particularly misleading. The +church with its sacraments and its sacerdotalism is the disease of +Christianity. Save for a few doubtful interpolations there is no +evidence that Christ tolerated either blood sacrifices or the +mysteries of priesthood. All these antique grossnesses were +superadded after his martyrdom. He preached not a cult but a +gospel; he sent out not medicine men but apostles. + +No doubt all who believe owe an apostolic service to God. They +become naturally apostolic. As men perceive and realise God, each +will be disposed in his own fashion to call his neighbour's +attention to what he sees. The necessary elements of religion could +be written on a post card; this book, small as it is, bulks large +not by what it tells positively but because it deals with +misconceptions. We may (little doubt have I that we do) need +special propagandas and organisations to discuss errors and keep +back the jungle of false ideas, to maintain free speech and restrain +the enterprise of the persecutor, but we do not want a church to +keep our faith for us. We want our faith spread, but for that there +is no need for orthodoxies and controlling organisations of +statement. It is for each man to follow his own impulse, and to +speak to his like in his own fashion. + +Whatever religious congregations men may form henceforth in the name +of the true God must be for their own sakes and not to take charge +of religion. + +The history of Christianity, with its encrustation and suffocation +in dogmas and usages, its dire persecutions of the faithful by the +unfaithful, its desiccation and its unlovely decay, its invasion by +robes and rites and all the tricks and vices of the Pharisees whom +Christ detested and denounced, is full of warning against the +dangers of a church. Organisation is an excellent thing for the +material needs of men, for the draining of towns, the marshalling of +traffic, the collecting of eggs, and the carrying of letters, the +distribution of bread, the notification of measles, for hygiene and +economics and suchlike affairs. The better we organise such things, +the freer and better equipped we leave men's minds for nobler +purposes, for those adventures and experiments towards God's purpose +which are the reality of life. But all organisations must be +watched, for whatever is organised can be "captured" and misused. +Repentance, moreover, is the beginning and essential of the +religious life, and organisations (acting through their secretaries +and officials) never repent. God deals only with the individual for +the individual's surrender. He takes no cognisance of committees. + +Those who are most alive to the realities of living religion are +most mistrustful of this congregating tendency. To gather together +is to purchase a benefit at the price of a greater loss, to +strengthen one's sense of brotherhood by excluding the majority of +mankind. Before you know where you are you will have exchanged the +spirit of God for ESPRIT DE CORPS. You will have reinvented the +SYMBOL; you will have begun to keep anniversaries and establish +sacramental ceremonies. The disposition to form cliques and exclude +and conspire against unlike people is all too strong in humanity, to +permit of its formal encouragement. Even such organisation as is +implied by a creed is to be avoided, for all living faith coagulates +as you phrase it. In this book I have not given so much as a +definite name to the faith of the true God. Organisation for +worship and collective exaltation also, it may be urged, is of +little manifest good. You cannot appoint beforehand a time and +place for God to irradiate your soul. + +All these are very valid objections to the church-forming +disposition. + + + +4. ORGANISATIONS UNDER GOD + + +Yet still this leaves many dissatisfied. They want to shout out +about God. They want to share this great thing with all mankind. + +Why should they not shout and share? + +Let them express all that they desire to express in their own +fashion by themselves or grouped with their friends as they will. +Let them shout chorally if they are so disposed. Let them work in a +gang if so they can work the better. But let them guard themselves +against the idea that they can have God particularly or exclusively +with them in any such undertaking. Or that so they can express God +rather than themselves. + +That I think states the attitude of the modern spirit towards the +idea of a church. Mankind passes for ever out of the idolatry of +altars, away from the obscene rites of circumcision and symbolical +cannibalism, beyond the sway of the ceremonial priest. But if the +modern spirit holds that religion cannot be organised or any +intermediary thrust between God and man, that does not preclude +infinite possibilities of organisation and collective action UNDER +God and within the compass of religion. There is no reason why +religious men should not band themselves the better to attain +specific ends. To borrow a term from British politics, there is no +objection to AD HOC organisations. The objection lies not against +subsidiary organisations for service but against organisations that +may claim to be comprehensive. + +For example there is no reason why one should not--and in many cases +there are good reasons why one should--organise or join associations +for the criticism of religious ideas, an employment that may pass +very readily into propaganda. + +Many people feel the need of prayer to resist the evil in themselves +and to keep them in mind of divine emotion. And many want not +merely prayer but formal prayer and the support of others, praying +in unison. The writer does not understand this desire or need for +collective prayer very well, but there are people who appear to do +so and there is no reason why they should not assemble for that +purpose. And there is no doubt that divine poetry, divine maxims, +religious thought finely expressed, may be heard, rehearsed, +collected, published, and distributed by associations. The desire +for expression implies a sort of assembly, a hearer at least as well +as a speaker. And expression has many forms. People with a strong +artistic impulse will necessarily want to express themselves by art +when religion touches them, and many arts, architecture and the +drama for example, are collective undertakings. I do not see why +there should not be, under God, associations for building cathedrals +and suchlike great still places urgent with beauty, into which men +and women may go to rest from the clamour of the day's confusions; I +do not see why men should not make great shrines and pictures +expressing their sense of divine things, and why they should not +combine in such enterprises rather than work to fill heterogeneous +and chaotic art galleries. A wave of religious revival and +religious clarification, such as I foresee, will most certainly +bring with it a great revival of art, religious art, music, songs, +and writings of all sorts, drama, the making of shrines, praying +places, temples and retreats, the creation of pictures and +sculptures. It is not necessary to have priestcraft and an +organised church for such ends. Such enrichments of feeling and +thought are part of the service of God. + +And again, under God, there may be associations and fraternities for +research in pure science; associations for the teaching and +simplification of languages; associations for promoting and watching +education; associations for the discussion of political problems and +the determination of right policies. In all these ways men may +multiply their use by union. Only when associations seek to control +things of belief, to dictate formulae, restrict religious activities +or the freedom of religious thought and teaching, when they tend to +subdivide those who believe and to set up jealousies or exclusions, +do they become antagonistic to the spirit of modern religion. + + + +5. THE STATE IS GOD'S INSTRUMENT + + +Because religion cannot be organised, because God is everywhere and +immediately accessible to every human being, it does not follow that +religion cannot organise every other human affair. It is indeed +essential to the idea that God is the Invisible King of this round +world and all mankind, that we should see in every government, great +and small, from the council of the world-state that is presently +coming, down to the village assembly, the instrument of God's +practical control. Religion which is free, speaking freely through +whom it will, subject to a perpetual unlimited criticism, will be +the life and driving power of the whole organised world. So that if +you prefer not to say that there will be no church, if you choose +rather to declare that the world-state is God's church, you may have +it so if you will. Provided that you leave conscience and speech +and writing and teaching about divine things absolutely free, and +that you try to set no nets about God. + +The world is God's and he takes it. But he himself remains freedom, +and we find our freedom in him. + + + +THE ENVOY + + +So I end this compact statement of the renascent religion which I +believe to be crystallising out of the intellectual, social, and +spiritual confusions of this time. It is an account rendered. It +is a statement and record; not a theory. There is nothing in all +this that has been invented or constructed by the writer; I have +been but scribe to the spirit of my generation; I have at most +assembled and put together things and thoughts that I have come +upon, have transferred the statements of "science" into religious +terminology, rejected obsolescent definitions, and re-coordinated +propositions that had drifted into opposition. Thus, I see, ideas +are developing, and thus have I written them down. It is a +secondary matter that I am convinced that this trend of intelligent +opinion is a discovery of truth. The reader is told of my own +belief merely to avoid an affectation of impartiality and aloofness. + +The theogony here set forth is ancient; one can trace it appearing +and disappearing and recurring in the mutilated records of many +different schools of speculation; the conception of God as finite is +one that has been discussed very illuminatingly in recent years in +the work of one I am happy to write of as my friend and master, that +very great American, the late William James. It was an idea that +became increasingly important to him towards the end of his life. +And it is the most releasing idea in the system. + +Only in the most general terms can I trace the other origins of +these present views. I do not think modern religion owes much to +what is called Deism or Theism. The rather abstract and futile +Deism of the eighteenth century, of "votre Etre supreme" who bored +the friends of Robespierre, was a sterile thing, it has little +relation to these modern developments, it conceived of God as an +infinite Being of no particular character whereas God is a finite +being of a very especial character. On the other hand men and women +who have set themselves, with unavoidable theological +preconceptions, it is true, to speculate upon the actual teachings +and quality of Christ, have produced interpretations that have +interwoven insensibly with thoughts more apparently new. There is a +curious modernity about very many of Christ's recorded sayings. +Revived religion has also, no doubt, been the receiver of many +religious bankruptcies, of Positivism for example, which failed +through its bleak abstraction and an unspiritual texture. Religion, +thus restated, must, I think, presently incorporate great sections +of thought that are still attached to formal Christianity. The time +is at hand when many of the organised Christian churches will be +forced to define their positions, either in terms that will identify +them with this renascence, or that will lead to the release of their +more liberal adherents. Its probable obligations to Eastern thought +are less readily estimated by a European writer. + +Modern religion has no revelation and no founder; it is the +privilege and possession of no coterie of disciples or exponents; it +is appearing simultaneously round and about the world exactly as a +crystallising substance appears here and there in a super-saturated +solution. It is a process of truth, guided by the divinity in men. +It needs no other guidance, and no protection. It needs nothing but +freedom, free speech, and honest statement. Out of the most mixed +and impure solutions a growing crystal is infallibly able to select +its substance. The diamond arises bright, definite, and pure out of +a dark matrix of structureless confusion. + +This metaphor of crystallisation is perhaps the best symbol of the +advent and growth of the new understanding. It has no church, no +authorities, no teachers, no orthodoxy. It does not even thrust and +struggle among the other things; simply it grows clear. There will +be no putting an end to it. It arrives inevitably, and it will +continue to separate itself out from confusing ideas. It becomes, +as it were the Koh-i-noor; it is a Mountain of Light, growing and +increasing. It is an all-pervading lucidity, a brightness and +clearness. It has no head to smite, no body you can destroy; it +overleaps all barriers; it breaks out in despite of every enclosure. +It will compel all things to orient themselves to it. + +It comes as the dawn comes, through whatever clouds and mists may be +here or whatever smoke and curtains may be there. It comes as the +day comes to the ships that put to sea. + +It is the Kingdom of God at hand. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg etext of God The Invisible King diff --git a/old/old/godik10.zip b/old/old/godik10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7affc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/godik10.zip |