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diff --git a/37531.txt b/37531.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03f375c --- /dev/null +++ b/37531.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6480 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Theology and the Social Consciousness, by +Henry Churchill King + +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: Theology and the Social Consciousness + A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to + Theology (2nd ed.) + +Author: Henry Churchill King + +Release Date: September 25, 2011 [EBook #37531] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Chris Pinfield, Bill Tozier +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + THEOLOGY AND THE + SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + + A STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THE + SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THEOLOGY + + BY + HENRY CHURCHILL KING + + PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY + IN OBERLIN COLLEGE + + _SECOND EDITION_ + + HODDER & STOUGHTON + NEW YORK + GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY + + COPYRIGHT, 1902 + BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + + Set up and electrotyped September, 1902 + Reprinted February, 1904; + July, 1907; August, 1910; April, 1912. + + To the Members of the + Harvard Summer School of Theology + + OF THE YEAR 1901 + IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR INTEREST IN THE LECTURES + THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF THIS BOOK + + + + +PREFACE + + +There is no attempt in this book to present a complete system of +theology, though much of such a system is passed in review, but only +to study a special phase of theological thinking. The precise theme of +the book is the relations of the social consciousness to theology. +This is the subject upon which the writer was asked to lecture at the +Harvard Summer School of Theology of 1901; and the book has grown out +of the lectures there given. In preparing the book for the press, +however, the lecture form has been entirely abandoned, and +considerable material added. + +The importance of the theme seems to justify a somewhat thorough-going +treatment. If one believes at all in the presence of God in +history--and the Christian can have no doubt here--he must be +profoundly interested in such a phenomenon as the steady growth of the +social consciousness. Hardly any inner characteristic of our time has +a stronger historical justification than that consciousness; and it +has carried the reason and conscience of the men of this generation in +rare degree. Having its own comparatively independent development, and +yet making an ethical demand that is thoroughly Christian, it +furnishes an almost ideal standpoint from which to review our +theological statements, and, at the same time, a valuable test of +their really Christian quality. + +In attempting, then, a careful study of the relations of the social +consciousness to theology, this book aims, first, definitely to get at +the real meaning of the social consciousness as the theologian must +view it, and so to bring clearly into mind the unconscious assumptions +of the social consciousness itself; and then to trace out the +influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion, +and upon theological doctrine. The larger portion of the book is +naturally given to the influence upon theological doctrine; and to +make the discussion here as pointed as possible, the different +elements of the social consciousness are considered separately. + +It should be noted, however, that the question raised is not the +historical one, How, as a matter of fact, has the social consciousness +modified the conception of religion or the statement of theological +doctrine? but the theoretical one, How should the social consciousness +naturally affect religion and doctrine? In this sense, the result +might be called, in President Hyde's phrase, a "social theology"; but, +as I believe that the social consciousness is at bottom only a true +sense of the fully personal, I prefer myself to think of the present +book as only carrying out in more detail the contention of my +_Reconstruction in Theology_--that theology should aim at a +restatement of doctrine in strictly personal terms. So conceived, in +spite of its casual origin, this book follows very naturally upon the +previous book. Some of the same topics necessarily recur here; and +references to the _Reconstruction_ have been freely made, in order to +avoid all unnecessary repetition. + +That this social sense of the fully personal has finally a real and +definite contribution to make to theology, I cannot doubt. I can only +hope that the present discussion may be found at least suggestive, +particularly in the analysis of the social consciousness, and in the +treatment of mysticism and of the ethical in religion, as well as in +the consideration of the special influence of the elements of the +social consciousness upon the restatement of doctrine. Of the +doctrinal applications, the application to the problem of redemption +may be considered, perhaps, of most significance. + + HENRY CHURCHILL KING. + + OBERLIN COLLEGE, June, 1902. + + + + + CONTENTS + + + INTRODUCTION + PAGE + THE THEME 1 + + + THE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + FOR THEOLOGY + + INTRODUCTION + + THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN 5 + + + CHAPTER I + + THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 9 + I. The Sense of the Like-Mindedness of Men 9 + II. The Sense of the Mutual Influence of Men 11 + 1. Contributing Lines of Thought 11 + 2. The Threefold Form of the Conviction 13 + III. The Sense of the Value and Sacredness of the Person 16 + IV. The Sense of Obligation 18 + V. The Sense of Love 20 + + + CHAPTER II + + THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN + EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 23 + I. The Value of the Analogy 23 + II. The Inevitable Inadequacy of the Analogy 24 + 1. It Comes from the Sub-personal World 24 + 2. Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves 24 + 3. Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything 25 + III. The Analogy Tested by the Definition of the Social + Consciousness 27 + + + CHAPTER III + + THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + IS THE REFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME 29 + I. The Question 29 + II. Otherwise, No Moral World at all 30 + 1. The Prerequisites of a Moral World 30 + (1) A Sphere of Law 30 + (2) Ethical Freedom 30 + (3) Some Power of Accomplishment 31 + (4) Members One of Another 32 + 2. The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the + Social Consciousness 32 + + + CHAPTER IV + + THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL + CONSCIOUSNESS 35 + I. How can it be, Metaphysically, that we do Influence + One Another? 35 + 1. Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection 36 + 2. We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity 37 + 3. Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity 39 + 4. Grounded in the Immanence of God 40 + II. What is Required for the Final Positive Justification of + the Social Consciousness, as Ethical? 44 + 1. Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God 44 + 2. God's Sharing in our Life 48 + 3. The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social + Consciousness 49 + + + THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + UPON THE CONCEPTION OF RELIGION + + INTRODUCTION 53 + + + CHAPTER V + + THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY + MYSTICAL 55 + I. What is the Falsely Mystical? 55 + 1. Nash's Definition 55 + 2. Herrmann's Definition 56 + II. The Objections of the Social Consciousness to the Falsely + Mystical 57 + 1. Unethical 58 + 2. Does not Give a Really Personal God 58 + 3. Belittles the Personal in Man 59 + 4. Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian 62 + + + CHAPTER VI + + THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL + RELATION IN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL 66 + I. The Social Consciousness Tends Positively to Emphasize + the Personal Relation in Religion 66 + 1. Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal 66 + 2. Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in + Religion 67 + 3. Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life + in Religion 68 + II. The Social Consciousness thus Keeps the Truly Mystical 70 + 1. The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements + in Mysticism 71 + (1) Emotion, the Test 71 + (2) Subjective Tendency 72 + (3) Underestimating the Historical 72 + (4) Tendency toward Vagueness 73 + (5) Tendency toward Pantheism 73 + (6) Tendency to Extravagant Symbolism 76 + 2. The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man 78 + 3. The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion 82 + + + CHAPTER VII + + THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION 86 + I. The Pressure of the Problem 86 + II. The Statement of the Problem 87 + III. The Answer 89 + 1. Involved in Relation to Christ 89 + 2. The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command 90 + 3. Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts 91 + 4. Communion with God, Through Harmony with His + Ethical Will 92 + 5. The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart 92 + 6. Sharing the Life of God 93 + 7. Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life 94 + 8. The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ, + Ethically Conditioned 96 + 9. The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God 98 + + + CHAPTER VIII + + THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE + HISTORICALLY CHRISTIAN 102 + I. The Social Consciousness Needs Historical Justification 102 + II. Christianity's Response to this Need 103 + + + THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE + + + CHAPTER IX + + GENERAL RESULTS 105 + I. The Conception of Theology in Personal Terms 106 + II. The Fatherhood of God, as the Determining Principle + in Theology 109 + III. Christ's Own Social Emphases 111 + IV. The Reflection in Theology of the Changes in the Conception + of Religion 113 + + + CHAPTER X + + THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS + OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 115 + I. No Prime Favorites with God 116 + II. The Great Universal Qualities and Interests, the Most + Valuable 117 + III. Essential Likeness Under very Diverse Forms 121 + IV. As Applied to the Question of Immortality 124 + V. Consequent Larger Sympathy with Men, Faith in Men, + and Hope for Men 127 + VI. Judgment According to Light, and the Moral Reality of + the Future Life 132 + + + CHAPTER XI + + THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL + INFLUENCE OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 136 + I. The Real Unity of the Race 136 + II. Deepening the Sense of Sin 139 + III. Mutual Influence for Good in the Attainment of Character 145 + 1. Application to the Problem of Redemption 147 + 2. The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of + Substitution and Propitiation 150 + IV. Mutual Influence for Good in our Personal Relation to God 160 + 1. In Coming into the Kingdom 160 + 2. In Fellowship within the Kingdom 162 + 3. In Intercessory Prayer 164 + V. Mutual Influence for Good in Confessions of Faith 167 + 1. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Impossible 169 + 2. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Undesirable 171 + VI. The Consequent Importance of the Doctrine of the Church 177 + + + CHAPTER XII + + THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND + SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON UPON THEOLOGY 179 + I. The Recognition of the Personal in Man 180 + 1. Man's Personal Separateness from God 180 + 2. Emphasis upon Man's Moral Initiative 181 + 3. Man, a Child of God 183 + II. The Recognition of the Personal in Christ 184 + 1. Christ, a Personal Revelation of God 184 + 2. Emphasizing the Moral and Spiritual in Asserting + the Supremacy of Christ 185 + 3. The Moral and Spiritual Grounds of the Supremacy + of Christ 188 + (1) The Greatest in the Greatest Sphere 188 + (2) The Sinless and Impenitent One 192 + (3) Consciously Rises to the Highest Ideal 194 + (4) Realizes the Character of God 195 + (5) Consciously Able to Redeem All Men 196 + (6) Complete Normality under this Transcendent + God-Consciousness and Sense of Mission 197 + (7) The Only Person Who can call out Absolute Trust 198 + (8) The One, in Whom God Certainly Finds Us 199 + (9) The Ideal Realized 200 + 4. Christ's Double Uniqueness 201 + 5. The Increasing Sense of Our Kinship with Christ, + and of His Reality 205 + III. The Recognition of the Personal in God. 207 + 1. The Steady Carrying Through of the Completely Personal + in the Conception of God. Guarding the Conception 208 + 2. God is Always the Completely Personal God 212 + (1) Consequent Relation of God to "Eternal Truths" 212 + (2) Eternal Creation 214 + (3) The Unity and Unchangeableness of God 216 + (4) The Limitations of the Conception of Immanence 217 + 3. Deepening the Thought of the Fatherhood of God 218 + (1) History, no Mere Natural Process 218 + (2) God, the Great Servant 219 + (3) No Divine Arbitrariness 220 + (4) The Passibility of God 221 + 4. As to the Doctrine of a Social Trinity 222 + 5. Preeminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing + all God's Relations with Men 226 + (1) Reflected in Christ 226 + (2) In Creation 230 + (3) In Providence 232 + (4) In Our Personal Religious Life 233 + (5) In the Judgment 237 + (6) In the Future Life 240 + + +THEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + + +INTRODUCTION + +_THE THEME_ + + +No theologian can be excused to-day from a careful study of the +relations of theology and the social consciousness. Whether this study +becomes a formal investigation or not, the social consciousness is so +deep and significant a phenomenon in the ethical life of our time, +that it cannot be ignored by the theologian who means to bring his +message to men really home. This book is written in the conviction +that, while men are thus moved as never before by a deep sense of +mutual influence and obligation, they have also as deep and genuine an +interest as ever in the really greatest questions of religion and +theology. Interests so significant and so akin cannot long remain +isolated in the mind. They are certain soon profoundly to influence +each other. And this mutual influence of theology and the social +consciousness form the theme of this book. + +Two questions are naturally involved in this theme. First: Has +theology given any help, or has it any help to give, to the social +consciousness?--the question of the first division of the book. +Second: Has the social consciousness made any contribution, or has it +any contribution to make, to theology?--the question of the second and +third divisions. That is to say: On the one hand, Have the great facts +which theology studies any help to give to the man who faces the +problem of social progress--of the steady elevation of the race? On +the other hand, Has the great fact of the immensely quickened social +consciousness of our time, with all that it means, any help to give to +the theologian in his attempt to bring the great Christian truths +really home to men, to make them more real, more rational, more vital? + +Or again: On the one hand, do theological doctrines--the most adequate +statements we can make of the great Christian truths--best explain and +best ground the social consciousness, so as best to bring our entire +thought in this sphere of the social into unity? Is the Christian +truth so great that it not only includes all that is true in this new +social consciousness--is fully able to take it up into itself and to +make it feel at home there--but also, so great that it alone can give +the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone enable it to +understand itself, and alone furnish it adequate motive and power? Is +the social consciousness, in truth, only a disguised statement of +Christian convictions, and does it really require the Christian +religion and its thoughtful expression to complete itself? Must the +social consciousness say, when it comes to full self-knowledge,--I am +myself an unmeaning and unjustified by-product, if there is not a God +in the full Christian sense? and, so saying, confirm again the great +Christian truths? This is the question of the first division. + +On the other hand, since the task of any given theologian is +necessarily temporary, and since any marked modification of the +consciousness of men will inevitably demand some restatement of +theological doctrine, the question here becomes--To what changed +points of view in religion and theology, to what restatements of +doctrine, and so to what truer appreciation of Christian truth, does +the new social consciousness naturally lead? How do the affirmations +of the social consciousness, as the outcome of a careful, inductive +study of the social evolution of the race, affect our theological +statements? This is the question of the second and third divisions of +the book. + +Our discussion must of course assume and build on the conclusions of +sociology, and of New Testament theology, especially the conclusions +concerning the social teaching of Jesus. + + + + +THE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS FOR THEOLOGY + + + + +INTRODUCTION + +_THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN_ + + +First, then, what is the real meaning of the social consciousness, as +the theologian must view it? The answer to this question involves a +preliminary one: What is the point of view of the theologian in any +investigation? One can only give his own answer. + +First of all, the theologian, as such, is an _interpreter_, not a +tracer of causal connections. He builds everywhere upon the scientific +investigator, and takes from him the statement of facts and processes. +With these he has primarily nothing to do. With reference to the +social consciousness, therefore, he does not attempt to do over again +the work of the sociologist; he asks only, What does the social +consciousness, in the light of the whole of life and thought, mean; +not, How did it come about? + +The theologian, too, is a _believer in the supremacy of spiritual +interests_; this is his central contention. He affirms strenuously, +with the scientific worker, the place and value of the mechanical; but +he is certain that the mechanical can understand itself even, only as +it is seen to be simple means, and thus clearly subordinate in +significance. His problem is, therefore, everywhere, that of ideal +interpretation, not of mechanical explanation. But, while he has +nothing to do with the scientific tracing of immediate causal +connections, he recognizes causality itself as requiring an ultimate +explanation, that cannot be mechanically given. The theologian must be +in this, then, an _ideal_ interpreter, and an inquirer after the +_ultimate_ cause. + +The theologian assumes, moreover, the legitimacy and value of the fact +of _religion_; for theology is simply the thoughtful, comprehensive, +and unified expression of what religion means to us. The meaning of +the social consciousness to the theologian involves, therefore, at +once the question of its relation to religious conviction. + +The point of view of the Christian theologian involves, besides, the +_reality of the personal God_ in personal relation to persons. +Theology is in earnest in its thought of God, and knows that God is +everywhere to be taken into account; that, if there is a God at all, +he is not to be exiled into some corner of his universe, but is +intimately concerned in all, is at the very heart of all; and that, +therefore, it is not a matter of merely curious interest or of +subsidiary inquiry, whether we are to look at our questions with God +in mind. + +Finally, the Christian theologian tries everywhere to make his point +of view _the point of view of Christ_. The theology, upon which he +ultimately stakes his all, is Christ's theology. He knows that there +is much concerning which he cannot refuse to think, but upon which +Christ has not expressed himself either explicitly or by clear +inference; but in all this unavoidable supplementary thinking he aims +to be absolutely loyal to the spirit of Christ. + +From this point of view of the Christian theologian, now, what does +the social consciousness mean? The answer may be given under four +heads: (1) the definition of the social consciousness; (2) the +inadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the +social consciousness; (3) the necessity of the facts, of which the +social consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be +supreme; (4) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social +consciousness. + +These four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first +division of our inquiry. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +_THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_ + + +The simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can +give to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense +of the real brotherhood of men. But five elements seem plainly +involved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if +that is to be clear and definite:--a deepening sense (1) of the +likeness or like-mindedness of men, (2) of their mutual influence, (3) +of the value and sacredness of the person, (4) of mutual obligation, +and (5) of love. + + +I. THE SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN[1] + +If a society is "a group of like-minded individuals," if the +"all-essential" requisites for cooeperation are "like-mindedness and +consciousness of kind," as Giddings tells us, then certainly a prime +element in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it--a +growing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and "potential +resemblance" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not +equality of powers. + +"Equality of need" among men, too,[2] to which sociology comes as one +of its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in +varying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life, +and so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the +most important things. + +So, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and +larger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential +resemblance. + +And the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that +_really_ knowing "how the other half lives" brings increasing +sympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. Every +painstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point +or other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying +resemblance between classes of men. + +From the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of +our day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force +always and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and +the consciousness of it. + +For all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed +before, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening +sense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the +modern social consciousness. + + +II. THE SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN + +A second element in the social consciousness, and, perhaps, that which +has most of all characterized it through the larger period of its +growth, is the strong sense of the mutual influence of men--that we +are all "members one of another." + +1. _Contributing Lines of Thought._--It is worth seeing how firmly +planted the idea is. Several lines of thought have united to induce +men to emphasize--perhaps even to over-emphasize--this way of thinking +of society. The influence of natural science, in the first place, has +been inevitably in this direction. Its root idea of the universality +of law forces upon one the thought of a world which is a _coherent_ +whole, a unity with universal forces in it, in which every part is +inextricably connected with every other. So, too, the acceptance of +the theory of evolution has led science to regard the whole history of +the physical universe as an organic growth. + +Psychology, also, with its present-day emphasis, in Baldwin and Royce, +upon the constant presence and fundamental character of _imitation_, +and its insistence upon the still more fundamental impulsiveness of +consciousness which Dewey believes underlies imitation,[3] is really +proclaiming exactly this element of the social consciousness. And the +whole assertion by the later psychology of the unity of man--mind and +body, and of the complex intertwining of all the functions of the +mind, is in closest harmony with a similar view of society. + +Philosophy, too, is exerting all along a half-unconscious pressure +toward the thought of the organic unity of society. That philosophy +may exist at all, it must start from the assumption of a universe, a +real unity of truth, and its problem is to find a _discerned_ unity. +It knows no unrelated being, and, consequently, whether it +theoretically accepts the formulation or not, it must admit that, as a +matter of fact, to be is to be in relations. It asserts as a universal +fact, what natural science and psychology both affirm in their own +respective spheres, the concrete relatedness of all. It cannot well +deny the same thought when applied to society. Its repeated attempts, +moreover, to conceive all as a developing unity, and the profound +influence of the analogy of the organism upon its history, both +further sustain the organic view of society. + +Christianity, as well, has been a powerful factor in this direction +from the beginning, for it really first gave the Idea of Humanity.[4] + +2. _The Threefold Form of the Conviction._--Sustained, now, by all +these movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and +Christianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken +three forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation +impossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be +shunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting. + +(1) This second element in the social consciousness has meant, then, +in the first place, a growing sense of the inevitableness of the +mutual influence of all men, and of all classes of men; that we are +all parts of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every other; +that we are bound up in one bundle of life with all men, and cannot +live an isolated life if we would; that we do influence one another +whether we will or not, and tend unconsciously to draw others to our +level and are ourselves drawn toward theirs; that we joy and suffer +together whether we will or not, and grow or deteriorate together. + +(2) But the mutual influence of men means more than this: not only +that we do inevitably affect one another in living out our own life, +but a growing sense of the fact that we are obviously not intended to +come to our best in independence of one another; that we are made on +so large a plan that we cannot come to our best alone; that we are +evidently made for personal relations, and that, therefore, largeness +of life for ourselves depends on our entering into the life of others. + +(3) But even more than this is true. It is not only that entering into +the life of others is a help in my life, it is _the_ great help, the +one great means, the indispensable, the essential condition of all +largeness of life; it is the very meaning of life,--life itself. We +are to find our life only in losing our life. Life is the fulfilment +of relations. When we try to run away from the variety and complexity +of these relations, we are running away from life itself. The +indispensableness of these relations to others is assumed, also, in +the assertion by the sociologist of an evolution toward a society, at +once more and more complex, and more and more perfect. + +But if I grow in the growth of another, the other grows in my growth. +If the only thing of value that I can finally give is myself, the +value of that gift depends upon the largeness and richness of the self +given. For love's own sake, therefore, I must grow, must strive to +bring to its highest perfection that work which is given me to do. A +person is a social being called to contribute to the whole, in the +line of his own best possibilities. One's largest ministry to others +is to be rendered, then, through sacred regard for one's own calling, +considered as exactly his place of largest service. Or, to put it the +other way: I can come to my best only in work so great and in +associations so large that I may lose myself in them in perfect +objectivity. + +The mutual influence of men, therefore, is unavoidable, is desirable, +is indispensable; isolation impossible, hindering, blighting. This is +the true solidarity of the race, in which there is no fiction, no +hiding in the inconceivable, and no pretense. + + +III. THE SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON + +The third element in the social consciousness, the sense of the value +and sacredness of the person, follows naturally from the sense of +like-mindedness and of mutual influence, but needs distinct and +emphatic statement. + +It is less easily separable than the other elements named, and, +indeed, may be made to include all the others, and does, in a way, +carry all with it. Thus broadly conceived, it has seemed to the writer +that--with the return to the historical Christ--it might well be +called the most notable moral characteristic of our time.[5] But, +though less easily and definitely discriminated, one who knows deeply +the modern social consciousness would surely feel that the very heart +of it had been omitted, if this growing sense of the value and +sacredness of the person did not come to strong expression. Reverence +for personality--the steadily deepening sense that every person has a +value not to be measured in anything else, and is in himself sacred to +God and man--this it is which marks unmistakably every step in the +progress of the individual and of the race. Without it, whatever the +other marks of civilization, you have only tyranny and slavery; with +it, though every trace of luxury and scientific invention be lacking, +you have the perfection of human relations. + +This sense of the value and sacredness of the person not only +characterizes increasingly the whole social and moral evolution of the +race, but it is to be seen in the clearly conscious demand for +equality of rights, and, especially--to take a single example--in the +growing recognition that the child is an individual with his own +rights; that he has a personality of his own of a sanctity inviolable +by the parent; that there are clear bounds beyond which no one may go +without personal outrage. The recognition by psychology of respect for +personality as one of the three or four most fundamental +conditions--if not the most essential of all--of happiness, of +character, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of +this element of the social consciousness. + + +IV. THE SENSE OF OBLIGATION + +But the elements of the social consciousness already named lead +directly to a growing sense of obligation. Every man carries in +himself his only possible standard of measurement of all else. A +growing sense of the likeness of other men to himself quickens at +once, therefore, the sense of obligation, and leads naturally to the +Golden Rule. Recognition of mutual influence, too, inevitably carries +with it a deeper sense of obligation; for, if we do affect others +constantly, then we are manifestly under obligation not only to do +direct service to others, but so to order our own lives as to help, +not to hinder, others. The sense of the value and sacredness of the +person plainly looks to the same deepening of obligation. + +As an element of the social consciousness, the sense of obligation +means for a given individual, a growing sense of responsibility for +all; and for society at large an increase in the number of those who +feel the obligation to serve. + +The growth in each of these directions cannot be questioned. There is +no privileged class, in whose own consciences there is not being +recognized more and more the right of the claim that they must justify +themselves by service which shall be as unique as their privilege. In +consequence, the conception of the governing classes is steadily +changing, for both the governed and the governing, to some recognition +of Christ's principle, that he who would be first must be servant of +all. The sharp insistence of the sociologist that "organization must +be for the organized" expresses the same thought. One must add +sociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward +its goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is +unselfish leadership.[6] This can only mean that there is, +increasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious, +willing cooeperation on the part of men in forwarding the social +evolution. + +None of us can return to the older attitude of comparative +indifference, nor can we honestly defend it. We do have obligations +and we own them; we are judging ourselves increasingly by Christ's +test of ministering love. + + +V. THE SENSE OF LOVE + +And the social consciousness ends necessarily in love, in the broader, +ethical meaning of that word. We shall never feel that the social +consciousness is complete, short of real love. All the other elements +of the social consciousness lead to love and are included in it. Even +the sociologist must bring in as necessary results of the +consciousness of kind--sympathy, affection, and desire for the +recognition of others;[7] and he finds these always more or less +distinctly at work among men. + +These further considerations from the study of evolution confirm this +result: that man is preeminently the social animal;[8] that with man +we have clearly reached the stage of persons and of personal +relations;[9] that the very existence and development of man required +love at every step;[10] and that the chief moral significance of man's +prolonged infancy is probably to be found in the necessary calling out +of love.[11] + +So, too, it has become constantly more and more clear that our +obligation, what we owe to others, is ourselves; and the giving of the +self is love. It seems to be thrust home upon social workers +everywhere that there is no solution of any social problem without a +personal self-giving in some way on the part of some; that there is no +cheaper way than this very costly one of love, of the giving of +ourselves--whether in the family, or in charity, or in criminology. + +The point, already noted, that the progress of society depends on +leaders who will serve with unselfish devotion, is only another +emphasis upon love as an indispensable element of the social +consciousness. + +And the social goal--equality, brotherhood, liberty, when these terms +are given any adequate ethical content--is absolutely unthinkable in +any really vital sense without love. + +Any attempted definition of love, moreover, resolves at once into what +we mean by the social consciousness. If we define love as the giving +of self, this is exactly what, with growing clearness and insistence, +the social consciousness demands. If with Herrmann we call love, "joy +in personal life"--joy, that is, in the revelation of personal life, +this can only come in that trustful, reverent, self-surrendering +association to which the social consciousness exhorts. If with Edwards +we call love, willing the highest and completest good of all, we reach +the same result. Or if with Christ in the Beatitudes, or with Paul in +the thirteenth of I Corinthians, we study the characteristics of love, +we shall hardly doubt that a complete social consciousness must have +these marks of love. + +These elements, then, make up the social consciousness: the sense of +like-mindedness, of mutual influence, of the value and sacredness of +the person, of obligation, and of love; and all these, with their +implied demands, only point to what a person must be if he is to be +fully personal. + +With this definition in mind, we may now ask, whether the analogy of +the organism can adequately express the social consciousness. + +[1] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, pp. 6, 10, 65, 66, 77. + +[2] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 324. + +[3] See _The New World_, Sept., 1898, p. 516. + +[4] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 211. + +[5] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chap. IX, pp, 169 ff. + +[6] See Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 302, 320-322. + +[7] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 65, 66. + +[8] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 241. + +[9] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 92-96. + +[10] Cf. Drummond, _The Ascent of Man_, pp. 272 ff. + +[11] Cf. John Fiske, _The Destiny of Man_, p. 74; Drummond, _Op. +cit._, p. 279 ff. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +_THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE +SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_[12] + + +I. THE VALUE OF THE ANALOGY + +The analogy of the organism has played so large a part in the history +of thought, especially in the consideration of ethical and social +questions, that it is well worth while to ask exactly how far this +analogy is adequate, although the danger of the abuse of the analogy +is probably somewhat less than formerly. + +It may be said at once that it is, undoubtedly, the very best +illustration of these social relations that we can draw from nature, +and it is of real value. It has had, moreover, as already indicated, a +most influential and largely honorable history in the development of +the thought of men. Its classical expression is in the epoch-making +twelfth chapter of I Corinthians, which makes so plain the ethical +applications of the analogy. + + +II. THE INEVITABLE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY + +1. _Comes from the Sub-personal World._--But it ought clearly to be +seen, on the other hand, that, considered as a complete expression of +the social consciousness, it is necessarily inadequate; and it is of +moment that we should not be dominated by it. Too often it has been +made to cover the entire ground, as though in itself it were a +complete expression and final explanation of the social consciousness, +instead of a quite incomplete illustration. For, in the first place, +the very fact that the analogy comes from the physical world, from the +sub-personal realm, makes it certain that it must fail at vital points +in the expression of what is peculiarly a personal and ethical fact. +We cannot safely argue directly from the physical illustration to +ethical propositions. + +2. _Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves._--Moreover, in this day +of extraordinary attention to the physical world, it is particularly +important that we should keep constantly in mind that we have direct +access to reality only in ourselves; that man is himself necessarily +the only key which we can use for any ultimate understanding of +anything; or, as Paulsen puts it, "I know reality as it is in itself, +in so far as I am real myself, or in so far as it is, or is like, that +which I am, namely, spirit."[13] We are not to forget that, in very +truth, we know _better_ what we mean by persons and personal +relations, than we do what we mean by members of a body and by organic +relations; and, further, that in point of fact, all those metaphysical +notions by which we strive to think things are ultimately derived from +ourselves; and that then we illogically turn back upon our own minds, +from which all these notions came, to explain the mind in the same +secondary way in which we explain other things. + +3. _Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything._--Natural science, +with its sole problem of the tracing of immediate causal connections, +naturally provokes a persistent, but nevertheless thoroughly mistaken, +"passion," as Lotze calls it,[14] "for construing everything,"--even +the most real and final reality, spirit; which wishes to see even this +real and final reality explained as the mechanical result of the +combination of simpler elements, themselves, it is to be noted, +finally absolutely inexplicable. Such perverse attempts will be widely +hailed, by many who do not understand themselves, as highly +scientific. And one who refuses to enter upon such investigations will +be criticized by such minds as "hardly getting into grips with his +subject." + +But it is a false application of the scientific instinct that leads +one to seek mechanical explanation for the final reality, or that +urges to precision of formulation beyond that warranted by the data. +It is from exactly this falsely scientific bias that theology needs +deliverance. "For," as Aristotle reminds us, "it is the mark of a man +of culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just +so far as the nature of the subject allows." There is a wise +agnosticism that is violated alike by negative and by positive +dogmatism. It is often overlooked that there is an over-wise +radicalism that assumes a knowledge of the depth of the finite and +infinite, quite as insistent and dogmatic as the view it supposes +itself to be opposing. "I know it is not so," it ought not to need to +be said, is not agnosticism. + +The guiding principle in a truly scientific theology is this, as Lotze +suggests: Just so far as changing action depends upon altering +conditions, we have explanatory and constructive problems to solve, +and no farther. No philosophical view can do without a simply given +reality. And we shall never succeed in understanding by what machinery +reality is manufactured--in "deducing the whole positive content of +reality from mere modifications of formal conditions."[15] + +We shall not allow ourselves to be misled, therefore, by the +scientific sound of the _detailed_ application of the analogy of the +organism to the facts of the social consciousness. And it is a +satisfaction to see that the clearest sociological writers are coming +to agree that there is strictly no "social mind" that can be affirmed +to exist as a separate reality, supposed to answer to society +conceived in its totality as an organism. + + +III. THE ANALOGY TESTED BY THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS + +When, now, we test the analogy of the organism by its competency to +express the full meaning of the social consciousness, as it has been +defined, we must say that the analogy but feebly expresses the +likeness of men; it best expresses the inevitableness of mutual +influence, though even here there is no understandable ultimate +explanation; it fairly expresses the desirableness and indispensableness +of mutual influence, but, of course, with entire lack of ethical +meaning; and it quite fails to express the sense of the value and the +sacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of +love. We need to see and feel exactly these shortcomings, if we are +not to abuse the analogy. There is no social consciousness that will +hold water that does not rest on what Phillips Brooks called "a +healthy and ineradicable individualism," in the sense of the +recognition of the fully personal. We are spirits, not organisms, and +society is a society of persons, not an organism, in a strict sense. +Why should we wish to make society less significant than it is? + +[12] Cf. King, _Op. cit._, pp. 92 ff., 179. + +[13] _Introduction to Philosophy_, p. 373. + +[14] _The Microcosmus_, Vol. I, p. 262. + +[15] Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 649 ff. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +_THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS, OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE +REFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME_ + + +I. THE QUESTION + +With this positive and negative definition of the social +consciousness in our minds, a third question immediately suggests +itself to one who wishes to go to the bottom of our theme. Why must +the facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, be as +they are if ideal interests are to be supreme? What has a theodicy to +say as to these facts? Why, that is, from the point of view of the +ideal--of religion and theology--why are we constituted so alike? so +that we must influence one another? so that the results of our actions +necessarily go over into the lives of others? so that the innocent +suffer with the guilty and the guilty profit with the righteous? so +that we must recognize everywhere the claim of others? so that we must +respect their personality? and so that we must love them? + + +II. OTHERWISE NO MORAL WORLD AT ALL + +The answer to all these world-old questions may perhaps be contained +in the single statement, that otherwise we should have no moral world +at all. There would be no thinkable moral universe, but rather as many +worlds as there are individuals, having no more to do with one another +than the chemical reactions going on in a set of test-tubes. + +1. _The Prerequisites of a Moral World._ For our human thinking, +assuredly, there are certain prerequisites, that the world may be at +all a sphere for moral training and action. What are these +prerequisites for a moral world? There must be, in the first place, a +_sphere of universal law_, to count on, within which all actions take +place. In a lawless world, action could hardly take on any +significance--least of all ethical significance. That freedom itself +should mean anything in outward expression, there must be the +possibility of intelligent use of means toward the ends chosen. + +There must be, in the second place, some _real ethical freedom_, some +power of moral initiative. We need not quarrel about the terms used; +but, as Paulsen intimates, no serious ethical writer ever doubted that +men have at least some power to shape their own characters.[16] +Without that assumption, we have a whole world of ideas and +ideals--many of them the realest facts in the world to us--that have +no legitimate excuse for being, that are simple insanities of the most +inexplicable sort. The very meaning of the personality, indeed, which +the social consciousness must demand for men, is some real existence +for self, that is, some real self-consciousness and moral initiative. + +And freedom is not enough; there must be also _some power of +accomplishment_. To ascribe mere volition to man seems, it has been +justly said, sophistical. Results are needed to reveal the character +of our acts, even to ourselves--to make that character real. Lotze's +charge that the world is imperfect because it might have been so made +that only good designs could be carried out, or so that the results of +evil volitions would be at once corrected,[17] is itself similarly +sophistical. Such a world, in which the outward results of action +never appear, would be but a play-world after all--only a nursery of +babes not yet capable of character. It could be no fit world for moral +training. + +And still more, not less, must this law of the necessary results of +actions hold in our relations to other persons. There can be, least of +all, a moral universe where we are not _members one of another_. +Character, in any form we can conceive it, could not then exist. Our +best, as well as our worst, possibilities are involved in these +necessary mutual relations. Moral character has meaning only in +personal relations. The results, therefore, which follow upon action, +if the character of our deed is to have reality for us, must be +chiefly personal. The realm of character has fearful possibilities. +This _is_ no play-world. We can cause and be caused suffering, and our +sin necessarily carries the suffering, if not the sin, of others with +it. + +2. _The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the Social +Consciousness._--All this could be changed in any vital way only by +shutting up every soul absolutely to itself, and with that result life +has simply ceased. + +For we cannot really conceive a person as having any reason for being +without such relations. He would be constantly baffled at every point, +for he is made for persons and personal relations. Love, too, the +highest source of both character and happiness, requires everywhere +personal relations. Religion itself, as a sharing of the life of God, +would be impossible without some relation to others; for God, at +least, could not be separated from the life of all. That is, persons, +love, religion, in such a world, have gone. + +This, then, simply means that the ideal world ceases to be, with the +denial of the facts that the social consciousness reflects. We must be +full persons, social beings in the entire meaning demanded by the +social consciousness--hard as the consequences involved often are--if +ideal interests are to be supreme. Indeed, the very moral judgment, +that incessantly prompts the problem of evil for every one of us, is +required, for its own existence, to assume the validity of the +relations about which it questions. For it complains, for the most +part, of those facts that follow inevitably from the necessary mutual +influence of men; but the chief sources of the joy it requires, that +it may justify the world, lie in these same mutual relations. It +assumes, thus, in its claims on the world, the validity and worth of +the very relations of which it complains in its criticism of the +world. Or, slightly to vary the statement, the major premise, even of +pessimism, is that a really justifiable world must have worth in the +joy it yields in personal life, impossible out of the personal +relations of a real moral universe. And there can be no moral universe +without the facts reflected in the social consciousness. The ideal +world requires, then, the facts of the social consciousness. + +[16] _System of Ethics_, pp. 467 ff. + +[17] _Philosophy of Religion_, p. 125. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +_THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_ + + +The most important and fundamental inquiry as to the possible help +of theology to the social consciousness still remains: What is the +ultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness? This +question includes two: (1) How can it be metaphysically that we do +influence one another? (2) What is required for the final positive +justification of the social consciousness as ethical? Theology's +answer to both questions is found in the being and character of God, +the creative and moral source of all. + + +I. HOW CAN IT BE, METAPHYSICALLY, THAT WE DO INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER? + +First, then, how can it be that we do influence one another? What is +the final explanation of the constant fact of our reciprocal action? +For in our final thinking we may not ignore this question. + +1. _Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection._--It may be worth +while saying, first, that the physical fact of race-connection, if +that could be proved, would be no sufficient explanation. The race +may, or may not, be dependent upon a single pair, but in any case this +is not the essential connection. The race is one by virtue of its +essential likeness, however that comes about. Men might have sprung +out of the ground in absolute individual independence of one another, +and yet if there were such actual like-mindedness as now exists, the +race would be as truly one as it now is, and as capable of reciprocal +action, and its members under the same obligation to one another. No +ideal interest is at stake, then, in the question of the actual +physical unity of the race as descended from one pair. + +One may say, of course, that the physical unity of the race would +naturally result, according to the laws apparently prevailing in the +animal world, in likeness. And this may, therefore, seem to him the +most natural proximate explanation. But, even so, it is well to know +that our entire _moral_ interest is in the essential likeness and +mutual influence of men, however brought about, and not in the +physical unity of men. Theology has no occasion to continue its +earlier excessive and quite fundamental emphasis upon this physical +unity. Moreover, such an explanation is necessarily but proximate. +Back of it lies the deeper question, Why just these laws, and modes of +procedure? + +2. _We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity._--Nor can +theology, from any point of view, afford to over-emphasize the +principle of heredity if it wishes to keep human initiative at all. It +is a dangerous alliance which the old-school theology with its racial +sin in Adam has been so ready to make with the principle of heredity. +That principle, as they wish to use it, proves quite too much; and +careful thinkers, really awake to ideal interests, may well rejoice in +the comparative relief which science itself, through the probably +somewhat exaggerated protest of the Weismann or Neo-Darwinian school, +seems likely to afford from the incubus of a grossly exaggerated +heredity. The main interest for the ideal view lies right here. We can +see why this law of the "inheritance of acquired characteristics," in +Professor James' language, "_should not_ be verified in the human +race, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence on the subject, we +should confine ourselves exclusively to lower animals. In them fixed +habit is the essential and characteristic law of nervous action. The +brain grows to the exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the +inheritance of these modes--then called instincts--would have in it +nothing surprising. But in man the negation of all fixed modes is the +essential characteristic. He owes his whole preeminence as a reasoner, +his whole human quality of intellect, we may say, to the facility with +which a given mode of thought in him may suddenly be broken up into +elements, which re-combine anew. Only at the price of inheriting no +settled instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel case +by the fresh discovery by his reason of novel principles. He is, _par +excellence_, the educable animal."[18] + +To over-emphasize the principle of heredity, then, is to strike at one +of the most fundamental distinctive human qualities, and so to +endanger every ideal interest. The growing like-mindedness of men and +their mutual influence are not forthwith to be ascribed to an +omnipotent principle of heredity. + +3. _Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity._--Nor is the mutual influence of +men to be explained by any mystical solidarity of the race considered +as a _finite_ whole. It is a simple and reasonable scientific demand, +that we should not assume a mysterious, indefinable and incalculable +cause, where known and intelligible causes suffice to explain the +phenomena in question. Do we need, or can we intelligently use, a +mystical solidarity? The only solidarity of the race which we seem +really to need, or with which we seem able intelligently to deal, is +the actual like-mindedness and the actual personal relations +themselves--the reciprocal action of spirits--the only kind of +reciprocal action which we can finally fully conceive. Any other +finite solidarity than this, though it has often figured in theology, +seems to me only a name without significance. In any case, we need to +insist in theology, much more than we have, upon that unity of the +race which is due to the actual likeness of men and their actual +mutual personal influence. Such a unity we know and can understand, +and it is of the highest ethical and spiritual importance. But to make +much of the physical unity is to ground the spiritual in the physical; +and, on the other hand, to take refuge in a mystical solidarity--and +this is often felt to be a rather deep procedure--for whatever +theological purpose, is to hide in the fog of the obscure and +unintelligible. + +4. _Grounded in the Immanence of God._--But back of all finite +phenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the +possibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. And it is, +perhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical +solidarity of the race is blindly groping. Unless one chooses to +accept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe +(and this position, I think with F. C. S. Schiller, may be reasonably +defended),[19] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final +explanation. And most of those, who try to think things through, feel +this pressure. And metaphysics, we do well to remember with Professor +James, "means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and +consistently."[20] As Lotze puts it: "How a cause begins to produce +its _immediate_ effect, how a condition is the foundation of its +direct result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and +effect _do_ thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that +compose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. But +there is an intolerable contradiction in the assumption that, though +two beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that +which takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things +that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect +each other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other."[21] + +This question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social +consciousness. How can it be that we do so influence one another? how +is our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? The answer of +theistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of God. + +Upon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can +ascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to God. All +else is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon +him. The kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be +_outside_ of God, independent of him; this would not make man more, +but less. Every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least +in common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real +immanence of God. We are, because God wills in us. This metaphysical +relation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be +conceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so +conceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral +initiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute +dependence of all the finite upon the will of God. As to our _being_, +we root solely in God. And the unity and consistency of the being of +God are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. Only so +is that contradiction of which Lotze spoke avoided. We are not +independent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our +very being upon God. And we are thus members one of another, +ultimately, only through him. + +The further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal +connections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible +analysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy, +independently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit +that the full cause is not really present in any of the finite +manifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of +the "hidden efficacy of the Infinite everywhere at work," and so must +recognize once again the indubitable immanence of God, the absolute +dependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as +possible only through him.[22] + +Or, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of +causality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in God. As +Professor Bowne states it:[23] "The fundamental antithesis of purpose +and causation is incorrect. The true antithesis is that of mechanical +and volitional causality." And he intimates the probability that all +causality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. "It +becomes a question," he says, "whether true causality can be found in +the phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal +which incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule." +The unity and consistency of the immanent will of God, then, are the +ultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. The mutual +influence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation +only in God. + +The social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of +the possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a +reflection of the immanence of the one God in the unity and +consistency of his life. + +But this, after all, is not the most important element of the social +consciousness. So far as it is _ethical_ at all, it can have no final +explanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. We +are driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the +subject of the chapter. + + +II. WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE FINAL POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION OF THE +SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ETHICAL? + +1. _Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God._--It is not enough +that we should be able to think of the unity of One Life pervading +all, or even of One Will upholding all. If the social consciousness, +as distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be +able to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal +forces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend; +in other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical +purpose conceivable only in a Person; that the ideals and purposes of +finite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with +God's own; that the loving holy purpose of the Infinite Will quickens +and sustains and surrounds our purposes. + +Let us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness +can be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must +remain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without +real excuse for being. That is, if the social consciousness is not to +be an illusion, it must be, as Professor Nash contends, cosmical, and +not merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. This is the +very heart of his stimulating book, _Ethics and Revelation_, +expressed, for example, in such sentences as these: "Nothing save a +sense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things, +nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on +the side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion +for the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of +shreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable +to the difficult work it has to do. But this sense of kinship with +what is deepest and most abiding in the universe--what else is meant +by pure religion." And again: "We, as founders and builders of the +true society, find ourselves shut up to an impassioned faith in the +sincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being. +Our religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that +personal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league +and covenant with the fundamental being. Here is the focus-point of +the prophetic revelation. At this point, the deep in God answers to +the deep in Man.... All that He is He puts in pledge for the +perfecting of the society He has founded."[24] + +Paulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point +of view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his +own solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he +says: "There is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond +mere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. That is his own life +and his future. His life has a meaning for him, and he directs it +toward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by +virtue of his will. Thus a faith springs up by the side of his +knowledge. He believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if +he is at all in earnest about it. Since, however, his aim is not an +isolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and +finally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his +people, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and +goodness in humanity. Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in +that cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always +something of the form of a religion. Hence faith infers that an inner +connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain +of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent +principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and +leads it to victory over all resisting forces." And Paulsen holds that +this implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical +theory. "What the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and +final goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then +believes that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the +world."[25] + +We must be able, then, to believe that the best we know--our highest +ideals--are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty +of the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion. +Ultimately, now, this means that nothing short of full Christian +conviction is needed to support the social consciousness. We need to +be able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of Christ is +at the very heart of the world. Nothing less will suffice. And this is +exactly the support which the Christian revelation offers to the +social consciousness. + +2. _God's Sharing in Our Life._--But if the social consciousness is +only a true reflection of God's own desire and purpose, then in a +sense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very +life of God. He shares in it. And no man can really see what that +means, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself +carried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of +another: "For the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of +God. Were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel. +But in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain +is his." And from the vision of this self-giving life of God we turn +back to our own place of service, saying with Matheson: "If Thou art +love then Thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search +Thy world."[26] + +We probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical +life with the life of God than by renewing our old faith that we are +children of a common Father, who have come, under God's own +leading--so far as a social consciousness is ours--voluntarily to +share in God's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men. +We do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with God. + +3. _The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social Consciousness._--And +as soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of +Christ's thought of God as Father, and into his revelation in his life +and death as to what the spirit of that Fatherhood is, we turn back to +the elements of our social consciousness to find them all +transfigured. + +Our _likeness_ is the likeness of common children of God reflecting +the image of the one Father, capable of character and of indefinite +progress into the highest. + +Our _mutual influence_ roots in a real Fatherhood, both in source of +being and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively +working for all. + +Our _sense of the value and sacredness of the person_ now for the +first time gets its full justification. Men are not only creatures +capable of joying and suffering, but children of God with a +preciousness to be interpreted only in the light of Christ, and with +the "power of the endless life" upon them. Concerning the value of the +person, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is +peculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to +ignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed +most with John Stuart Mill and Sully. Of the hope of immortality, Mill +says: "The beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling. +It makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings, +and gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the +sentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by +mankind at large." And Sully adds: "I would only say that if men are +to abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering +and sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made +good, so far as I can see, by any new idea of services to collective +humanity."[27] + +Our _sense of obligation_ deepens with all this deepening of the value +of men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to God's own +life and character--in no mere figurative sense the voice of God in +us. + +And our _love_ becomes simply entering a little way into God's own +love, a sharing more and more in his life. + +And when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in +the light of Christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the +first time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and +that it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. If the +social consciousness is not an illusion, Christ's thought of God and +of the life with God ought to be true; and if the world is an honest +world, it is true. It is not only true that Christ has a social +teaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires +Christ's teaching for its own final justification. The Christian truth +_is_ so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its +fullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone +can give it adequate motive and power; for, in Keim's words, "to-day, +to-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that God is our +Father, and that the Father is the rest of our souls."[28] + +[18] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 367, 368. + +[19] _The Philosophical Review_, May, 1896, p. 228. + +[20] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 461. + +[21] _Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 599. + +[22] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 54, 84, 102. + +[23] _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. 91, 111. + +[24] _Ethics and Revelation_, pp. 50, 243, 244. + +[25] _Introduction to Philosophy_, pp. 8, 9, 313. + +[26] _Searchings in the Silence_, p. 46. + +[27] Quoted by Orr, _The Christian View of God and the World_, pp. +160, 72. + +[28] Quoted by Bruce, _The Kingdom of God_, p. 157. + + + + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE CONCEPTION OF +RELIGION + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine +give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of +our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any +means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect +our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines? + +In this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact +connection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime +importance. But we can see, for example, in this second division of +our theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and +how religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully +warranted; and this is the main question. + +If the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the +thoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then +it is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion +will necessarily affect theological statement. Our inquiry as to the +influence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins +with religion. + +The discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all +that part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into +the life with God. + +The natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception +of religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the +subjects of the four succeeding chapters: (1) The social consciousness +tends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; (2) it tends to +emphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly +mystical; (3) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; (4) it +tends to emphasize the concretely historically Christian in religion. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +_THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL_ + + +I. WHAT IS THE FALSELY MYSTICAL? + +Two very clear answers made from different points of view deserve +attention. + +1. _Nash's Definition._--In trying to set forth the "main mood and +motives of religious speculation" in the early Christian centuries, +Professor Nash takes, as perhaps the two strongest influences in +determining the type of man to whom Christian apologetics had then to +appeal, Philo and Plotinus, and says: "By what road shall the mind +enter into a deep and intimate knowledge of God? That is the decisive +question. Plotinus the Gentile and Philo the Jew are at one in their +answer. The reason must rise above reasoning. It must pass into a +state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy before it can truly +know God. Philo gave up for the sake of his theory, the position of +the prophets. Plotinus, for the same theory, forsook the position of +Plato and Aristotle. The prophets conceived the inmost essence of +things, the being and will of God, as a creative and redemptive force +that guided and revealed itself through the career of a great national +community. Plato and Aristotle conceived the essence of life as a +labor of reason; and, for them, the labors of reason found their +sufficient refreshment and inspiration in those moments of clear +synthesis which are the reward of patient analysis. Revelation came to +the prophet through his experience of history. To the philosopher it +came through hard and steady thinking. But Philo and Plotinus together +declared these roads to be no thoroughfares. The Greek and the Jew met +on the common ground of a mysticism that sacrificed the needs of sober +reason and the needs of the nation to the necessities of the +monk."[29] Mysticism is here conceived as unethical, unhistorical, and +unrational. + +2. _Herrmann's Definition._--Herrmann's definition of mysticism is the +second one to which attention is directed. He says: "When the +influence of God upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward +experience of the individual; when certain excitements of the emotions +are taken, with no further question, as evidence that the soul is +possessed by God; when, at the same time, nothing external to the soul +is consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when no +thoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the positive +contents of an idea that rules the soul--then that is the piety of +mysticism. He who seeks in this wise that for the sake of which he is +ready to abandon all beside, has stepped beyond the pale of Christian +piety. He leaves Christ and Christ's Kingdom altogether behind him +when he enters that sphere of experience which seems to him to be the +highest."[30] The marks of mysticism for Herrmann, then, are: that it +is purely subjective; that it is merely emotional and unethical; and +hence that it has no clear object, and is abstract, unrational, +unhistorical, and so unchristian. + + +II. THE OBJECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL + +Against this neo-platonic, falsely mystical conception of religion, +the social consciousness seems to be clearly arrayed, and, so far as +the social consciousness influences religion, it will certainly tend +to draw it away from this falsely mystical idea. + +1. _Unethical._--For, in the first place, this neo-platonic conception +of religion has nothing distinctly ethical in it. The ethical is +manifestly not made the test of true religious experience, as it is in +the New Testament. The social consciousness, on the other hand, is +predominantly and emphatically ethical, and can have nothing to do +with a religion in which ethics is either omitted or is wholly +subordinate. At this point, therefore, the pressure of the social +consciousness is strongly against a neo-platonic mysticism. + +2. _Does not Give a Real Personal God._--In the second place, the +social consciousness cannot get along with the falsely mystical, +because it does not give a real personal God. Let us be clear upon +this point. Is not Herrmann right when he says that all that can be +said of the God of this mysticism is "that he is not the world? Now +that is precisely all that mysticism has ever been able to say of God +as it conceives him. Plainly, the world and the conception of it are +all that moves the soul while it thinks thus of God. Only +disappointment can ensue to the soul whose yearning for God in such +case keeps on insisting that God must be something utterly different +from the world. If such a soul will reflect awhile on the nature of +the God thus reached, the fact must inevitably come to the surface +that its whole consciousness is occupied with the world now as it was +before, for evidently it has grasped no positive ideas--nothing but +negative ideas--about anything else. Mysticism frequently passes into +pantheism for this very reason, even in men of the highest religious +energy; they refuse to be satisfied with the mere longing after God, +or to remain on the way to him, but determine to reach the goal +itself, and rest with God himself."[31] + +Now we have already seen that the social consciousness can find +adequate support and power and motive only in faith that its purpose +is God's purpose, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical +purpose, conceivable only in a personal God; and, therefore, neither +an empty negation nor pantheism can ever satisfy it. + +3. _Belittles the Personal in Man._--The false mysticism, moreover, +belittles the personal in man as well as in God; for it does not treat +with real reverence either the personality, the ethical freedom, the +sense of obligation, or the reason of man. This whole thought of "a +state that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy" is a sort of swamping +of clear self-consciousness and definite moral initiative, in which +the very reality of man's personality consists. It is a heathen, not a +Christian, idea of inspiration which demands the suppression of the +human, whether in consciousness, in will, in reason, or by belittling +the sense of obligation to others. But mysticism has at least tended +toward failure in all these respects. + +And yet, from the time that Paul argued with the Corinthians against +their immense overestimation of the gift of speaking with tongues, +this fascination of the merely mystical has been felt in Christianity. +(1) The very mystery and unintelligibility of the experience, (2) its +ecstatic emotion, (3) its sense of being controlled by a power beyond +one's self, and (4) its contrast with ordinary life--all these +elements make the mystical experience seem to most all the more +divine, although in so judging they are applying a pagan, not a +Christian, standard. So far as these experiences have value, it is +probably due to the strong and realistic sense which they give of +being in the presence of an overpowering being. If thoroughly +permeated and dominated with other elements, this sense is not without +its value. + +But it is interesting to notice that, although Paul does not deny the +legitimacy of the gift of speaking with tongues, he nevertheless +absolutely subordinates it, and insists that the most ecstatic +religious emotions are completely worthless without love. Evidently +the considerations which weighed most with the Corinthians in valuing +the gift of unintelligible ecstatic utterance weighed little with +Paul; and one can see how Paul implicitly argues against each of those +considerations: (1) God is not an unknown, mystic force, but the +definite, concrete God of character, shown in Christ. (2) He speaks to +reason and will as well as to feeling, and he best speaks to feeling +when he speaks to the whole man. True religious emotion must have a +rational basis and must move to duty. (3) Religion, he would urge, is +a self-controlled and voluntary surrender to a personal God of +character, not a passive being swept away by an unknown emotion. (4) +God has most to give, be assured, he would have added, in the _common_ +ways of life. + +Now, in every one of these protests, the social consciousness +instinctively joins. It cannot rest in a conception of religion that +belittles the personal in God or man; for it is itself an emphatic +insistence upon the fully personal. And it can, least of all, get on +with the mystical ignoring of the rational and the ethical, for it +holds that the social evolution moves steadily on to a rational +like-mindedness, and to a definitely ethical civilization. Giddings +puts the sociological conclusion in a sentence: "It is the rational, +ethical consciousness that maintains social cohesion in a progressive +democracy."[32] Now that which is clearly recognized as the goal in +the relations of man to man will not be set aside as unwarranted or +subordinate in the relations of man to God. And we may depend upon it. + +4. _Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian._--Once more, the +social consciousness cannot approve of the mystical conception of +religion in its ignoring, in its highest state, the historically and +concretely Christian. With mysticism's subjective, emotional, and +abstract conception of the highest communion with God, and of the way +thereto, the historical and concrete at best can be to it only +subordinate means, more or less mysteriously connected with the +attainment of the goal, and left behind when once the goal is reached. + +The social consciousness, on the other hand, requires historical +justification, and definitely builds on the facts of the historical +social evolution. + +In the case of the prophets and psalmists, for example, who alone in +the ancient world most fully anticipated the modern social feeling, +the social consciousness plainly arose in the face of the concrete +historical life of a people. No result of modern Old Testament +criticism is more certain. So that, speaking of "the religious aspects +of the social struggle in Israel," McCurdy can use this strong +language: "It is not too much to say that this conflict, intense, +uninterrupted, and prolonged, is the very heart of the religion of the +Old Testament, its most regenerative and propulsive movement. To the +personal life of the soul, the only basis of a potential, world-moving +religion, it gave energy and depth, assurance and hopefulness, repose +and self-control, with an outlook clear and eternal."[33] But it was +this standpoint of the prophets that the falsely mystical conception +of religion abandoned. We may well take to heart, in our estimate of +mysticism, the gradual but steady elimination of ecstasy in the +development of Israel, and its practically total absence in those we +count in the highest sense prophets.[34] + +The social consciousness, moreover, has almost entirely to do with +men, and hence naturally must lay stress on human history, rather than +on nature, as a source of religious ideas. Indeed, it will have no +doubt that what nature is made to mean religiously will be chiefly +determined by the prevalent social ideals. It can, therefore, least of +all ignore the historical in Christianity. + +The social consciousness recognizes increasingly, too, with the +clearing of its own ideals and with the deepening study of the +teaching of Jesus, that it really is only demanding, in the concrete, +and in detailed application to particular problems, and to all of +them, the spirit shown in its fullness only in Christ, as Professor +Peabody's eminently sane treatment of the social teaching of Jesus +seems to me fairly to have proven. The social consciousness, +therefore, cannot help becoming more and more consciously and +emphatically Christian. + +In a single sentence, because of the steps of its own long evolution, +the social consciousness instinctively distrusts the highly emotional, +unless it is manifestly under equally strong rational control, and +unless it has equal ethical insight and power, and is historically +justified. It tends, therefore, necessarily to draw away from the +falsely mystical in religion, which is lacking in all these respects. + +And the same reasons, which array the social consciousness against the +falsely mystical in religion, lead it into natural sympathy with a +positive emphasis upon the personal, the ethical, and the historically +concretely Christian in religion. + +[29] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 33. + +[30] Herrmann, _The Communion of the Christian with God_, pp. 19, 20. + +[31] Herrmann, _Op. cit._, p. 27. + +[32] Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 321; cf. also pp. 155 ff, +302, 320, 327. + +[33] McCurdy, _History, Prophecy, and the Monuments_, Vol. II, p. 223; +cf. pp. 214, ff. + +[34] G. A. Smith, _The Book of the Twelve Prophets_, Vol. I, pp. 30, +84, 89; Cornill, _The Prophets of Israel_, pp. 41, 46; _The Expository +Times_, Jan., Feb., 1902, article, _Prophetic Ecstasy_. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL RELATION +IN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL_ + + +I. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TENDS POSITIVELY TO EMPHASIZE THE PERSONAL +RELATION IN RELIGION + +1. _Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal._--The social consciousness +sees man as preeminently the social animal, made for personal +relations, irrevocably and essentially knit up with other persons. It +deepens everywhere our sense of persons and of personal relations. It +may be itself almost defined as the sense of the fully personal. + +Religion, then, if it is to be most real to men of the social +consciousness, must be personally conceived, that is, must be +distinctly seen to be a personal relation of man to God. And this +conception, as the highest we can reach, is to be followed fearlessly +to the end; only guarding it against wrong inferences from the simple +transference to God of finite conditions, and recognizing exactly in +what respects the personal relation to God is unique.[35] + +The social consciousness, moreover, as we have seen, must have a +conception of religion that can really justify the social +consciousness, and, therefore, must do justice to the fully personal +in God and man; and this need also leads the social consciousness +naturally to the conception of religion as a personal relation. + +2. _Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in Religion._--When +this conception is carried out, it is found that growth in the +religious life, in communion with God, follows the laws of a deepening +friendship.[36] These laws can, therefore, be known and studied and +formulated; and religion, at the same time, ceases to be +unintelligible and ceases to be isolated--cut off from the rest of +life, and becomes rather that one great fundamental relation which +gives being and meaning and value to all the rest. In absolute +harmony, then, with the genesis of the social consciousness, religion, +in this conception, is bound up with the whole of life; and we catch a +glimpse of the real and final unity of life in true love, the relation +to God and the relation to man each helping everywhere the other. If +religion is truly a personal relation, and its laws are those of a +deepening friendship, then every human relation, heartily and truly +fulfilled, becomes a new outlook on God, a revelation of new +possibilities in the religious life. And, on the other hand, in that +mutual self-revelation and answering trust upon which every growing +personal relation is built, every fresh revelation of God is an +enlarging of our ideal for our relations to others. Even biblical +literature, perhaps, furnishes no more perfect example of the +interplay of the human and divine relations than Hosea's account of +his own providential leading through the human relation into the +divine, and back again from the divine to a still better human. + +3. _Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life in +Religion._--And if religion is to be justified in its supreme claims +by the social consciousness, it must be felt to offer, besides, the +ideal conditions of the richest life. As a personal relation to God, +religion need not shrink from this test. Our great needs are character +and happiness. Psychology seems to me to point to two great means and +to two accompanying conditions of both character and happiness. The +means are association and work; the corresponding conditions are +reverence for personality, and objectivity--the mood of both love and +work. The great essentials, therefore, to the richest life are (1) +association in which personality is respected, and (2) work in which +one can lose himself. Now, when would these conditions become ideal? +On the one hand, as to association, when the association is with him +who is of the highest character and of the infinitely richest life, +and relation to whom is fundamental to every other personal relation; +when, secondly, God is made concrete and real to us in an adequate +personal revelation of his character, and of his love toward us; and +when, third, the association is individualized for each one, who +throws himself open to God, in God's spiritual presence in us, +constantly and intimately, and yet _unobtrusively_, cooeperating with +us. And, on the other hand, as to work, when the work is God-given +work, to which one is set apart, and in which he may lose himself with +joy. These are the ideal conditions of the richest life. Just these +ideal conditions Jesus declared actualities. For the fulfilment of +just these, in the case of his disciples, he prayed in his double +petition,--"Keep them," "Sanctify them," "Keep them in thy name," that +is, through the divine association. "Sanctify them"--set them apart +unto their God-given work. "As thou hast sent me into the world, even +so have I also sent them into the world." Such a conception of +religion can fairly claim to meet, broadly and deeply, the most +exacting demands of the social consciousness for emphasis upon the +personal relation in religion. + + +II. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS THUS KEEPS THE TRULY MYSTICAL + +I have no predilection for the term mystical, and would gladly confine +it to what I have termed the neo-platonic or falsely mystical, were it +not that, in spite of the dictionaries and the histories of philosophy +and the histories of doctrine, the term is used in two quite different +senses. Many, it seems to me, are defending what they call the +mystical in religion, who have no idea of defending what Herrmann and +Nash call mystical. And many, on the other hand, are defending and +teaching the falsely mystical through an undefined fear that else they +will lose the truly mystical. Theology and religion both greatly need +a clear discrimination of terms here. Many are involved, in both +living and thinking, in a self-contradiction, which they feel but +cannot state; and are urging with themselves and with others a means +of religious life and a corresponding method of conception, which +really contradict their highest convictions in other lines of life and +thought. Can we find our way out of this confusion? + +If one studies carefully the historical representatives of mysticism, +and especially such a strong type as Jacob Boehme, whom Erdmann calls +the "culmination of mysticism," and still keeps his head, certain +dangers in mysticism, it would seem, must become apparent. And it may +be worth while to attempt a brief, but definite, analysis of the +justifiable and unjustifiable elements in these mystical movements. + +1. _The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements in Mysticism._--(1) The +first danger in mysticism seems to me to be the tendency to make +simple emotion the supreme test of the religious state. Whether this +emotion is thought of as ecstatic--such as some of the old mystics +called "being drunk with God," or, as quietistic--in which +imperturbability, passionlessness, become the highest good--is +comparatively indifferent. The justifiable element here is the +insistence that religion is real and is life; for feeling is perhaps +the most powerful element in the sense of reality. So James says: +"Speaking generally, the more a conceived object excites us, the more +reality it has."[37] The unjustifiable element is the perilous +subjection of the rational and ethical. Such a view must always lack +any positive and adequate conception of our active life and vocation +in the world. + +(2) A second closely connected danger in mysticism is the tendency +toward mere subjectivism. There is here a justifiable element in the +emphasis on one's own personal conviction and faith; an unjustifiable +element in the tendency to underrate anything but the purely +subjective, to ignore all correcting influences from others, from the +church, and from the Scriptures. + +(3) A third danger follows from this: the marked tendency to +underestimate the historical. The justifiable element here is, again, +the emphasis on personal conviction and faith; the unjustifiable +element is the tendency toward the greatest one-sidedness, and toward +emptiness, especially of ethical content. Advising our young people +simply to "listen to God," without the strongest insistence upon the +historical revelation of God at the same time, is exposing them to the +great danger of mistaking for an indubitable, divine revelation the +veriest vagary that may chance in their empty-mindedness next to come +into their thought. With the reason in supposed abeyance, the door is +thus thrown open to the grossest superstitions. Honest attempts to +deepen the religious life may thus become dangerous assaults upon true +religion. + +(4) A fourth danger in mysticism is so strong a tendency toward +vagueness, that the common mind is not without warrant in identifying +mysticism and mistiness. The justifiable element here is in the real +difficulty of expressing the full content of the entire religious +experience; the unjustifiable element is, once more, the slighting of +the historical, the ethical, and the rational, especially in talking +much of the contradictions of reason, and of what is above reason. +Mysticism naturally lacks positive content. + +(5) Another danger--the tendency toward pantheism--comes in partly, as +Herrmann has suggested, as a meeting of this lack of content, and +partly as the logical outcome of such an insistence upon losing +oneself in God as amounts to a being swept out of one's self--a loss +of clear and rational self-consciousness, which is next interpreted +speculatively as a real absorption in God, and is then made the goal. +This is the familiar road of Indian and neo-platonic mysticism, and +its phenomena are real enough, but probably of only the slightest +religious significance. Tennyson tells somewhere of the immense sense +of illumination that came to him once from simply repeating +monotonously his own name--"Alfred Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson." This +may be as effective as looking at the end of one's nose and +ceaselessly reiterating "Om," as does the Hindu ascetic. A still +shorter and more certain method is through nitrous-oxide-gas +intoxication, of which Professor James says: "With me, as with every +other person of whom I have heard, the key-note of the experience is +the tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical +illumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of +almost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of +being with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity, to which its normal +consciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the +feeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few +disjointed words and phrases as one stares at a cadaverous-looking +snow-peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black +cinder left by an extinguished brand." "The immense emotional sense of +reconciliation," he felt to be the characteristic mood. "It is +impossible to convey," he says, "an idea of the torrential character +of the identification of opposites as it streams through the mind in +this experience."[38] + +Now it is not safe to ignore such facts, when we are seriously trying +to estimate the religious significance of intense emotional +experiences, the reality of which we need not at all question. The +vital question is, not that of the reality of the experiences, but +that of the real cause of the experiences; and the only possible test +of this is rational and ethical. But from this test, mysticism tends +from the start to shut itself off, and so, assuming the experience to +be truly religious, ends often in virtual pantheism. + +The justifiable element in this insistence upon absorption in God is +the necessary moral relation of complete surrender to God. The +unjustifiable element is in belittling the personal in both God and +man, and in making essentially religious an experience that has almost +nothing of the rational and ethical in it, and that, on that very +account, fosters the irreverent familiarity with Christ so deplored by +more than one careful student of mysticism. A natural and common and +most dangerous accompaniment of such an intense emotional experience +is the tendency afterward, to excuse sin in oneself. In the case of +the most conscientious, it is worth noting, such an emphasis upon +intense experiences tends to lead them to distrust the reality of the +normal Christian experience if they have not had these intense +emotions, or if they have had them, tends to bring them into despair +when they find these marked experiences actually proving less powerful +in effects upon life than they had expected. + +(6) The last danger in mysticism, to which reference will be made, is +the tendency to extravagant symbolism. This is closely connected with +"the immense emotional sense of reconciliation," and is much stronger +by nature in some than in others. The born mystic finds his own +subjective views symbolized everywhere, and is in grave danger of +being led into an ingenious, practically unconscious intellectual +dishonesty. The justifiable element here is that sense of the unity +and worth of things which is the most fundamental conviction of our +minds. The unjustifiable element has been sufficiently indicated. + +The justifiable elements in mysticism, then, may be said to include: +the insistence on the legitimate place of feeling in religion as a +real and vital experience; the emphasis on one's own conviction and +faith; the real difficulty of expressing the full meaning of the +religious experience; the demand for a complete ethical surrender to +God; and the faith in the real unity and worth of the world in God. +Now if one tries to bring together these justifiable elements in +mysticism, the truly mystical may all be summed up as simply a protest +in favor of the whole man--the entire personality. It says that men +can experience and live and feel and do much more than they can +logically formulate, define, explain, or even fully express. Living is +more than thinking. + +2. _The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man._--The element to which +mysticism has tried most to do justice is feeling, and so it has been +liable to a new and dangerous one-sidedness. But the truly mystical +must be a protest alike against a narrow juiceless intellectualism, +against a narrow moralistic rigorism, and against a blind and +spineless sentimentalism. It is a protest particularly against making +the mathematico-mechanical view of the world the only view; against +making logical consistency the sole test of truth or reality; against +ignoring all data, except those which come through the intellect +alone; that is, against trying to make a part, not the whole, of man +the standard; in other words, against ignoring the data which come +through feeling and will--emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and religious +data, as well as those judgments of worth which underlie reason's +theoretical determinations. + +Man stands, in fact, everywhere face to face with an actual world of +great complexity, that seems to him at first what James says the +baby's world is, "one big blooming buzzing confusion;" "and the +universe of all of us is still to a great extent such a confusion, +potentially resolvable, and demanding to be resolved, but not yet +actually resolved, into parts."[39] In one sense, man's whole task is +to think unity and order into this confusion. The problem really +becomes that of thinking the universe through in several kinds of +terms, and then finally bringing all together into one comprehensive +view. All these are alike ideals which the mind sets before itself. +The easiest of these problems is the attempt to think the world +through, in mathematico-mechanical terms. But the attempt to think the +world through in aesthetic or ethical or religious terms is equally +legitimate, though it is more difficult. Not only, then, is the +mathematico-mechanical view not the sole justifiable view, but it +really has its justification in an ideal, and success in this attempt +affords just encouragement for the hope of success in the other more +difficult problems.[40] + +The truly mystical holds, then, that the narrow intellectualism is +unwarranted, because natural science, the mechanical view of the +world, is itself an ideal--the "child of duties," as Muensterberg calls +it--and so cannot legitimately rule out other ideals; because we have +just as immediate a conviction concerning the worth, as concerning the +logical consistency of the world; because a narrow intellectualism +would make conscious life but a "barren rehearsal" of the outer world, +without significance; because if we can trust the indications of our +intellect, we ought to be able to trust the indications of the rest of +our nature; and because, thus, the only possible key and standard of +truth and reality are in ourselves--the whole self, and "necessities +of thought" become necessities of a reason which means loyally to take +account of all the data of the entire man. + +And the same point may be thus stated. We use the word rational in two +quite distinct senses: in the narrow sense, as meaning simply the +intellectual; in the broad sense, as indicating the demands of the +entire man. The true mysticism stands for the broadly rational. + +So, too, we speak of the necessary fundamental assumption of the +honesty or sincerity of the world; but this includes two quite +distinct propositions: one, that the world must be thinkable, +conceivable, construable, a logically consistent whole, a sphere for +rational thinking,--where the test is consistency; the other, that the +world must be worth while, must not mock our highest ideals and +aspirations, must in some true and genuine sense satisfy the whole +man, be a sphere for rational living,--where the test is worth. All +our arguments go forward upon these two assumptions. Now, a true +mysticism contends that the second principle is as rational as the +first, though it must be freely granted that it is not as easy to +employ it for detailed conclusions, and it is consequently much more +liable to abuse. The true mysticism wishes to be not less, but more, +rational. It knows no shorthand substitute for the hard and steady +thinking of the philosopher, or for the historical experience of the +prophet; it needs and uses both. + +In all this, it is plain that the truly mystical is a legitimate +outgrowth of the emphasis of the social consciousness upon recognition +of the entire personality. Phillips Brooks finds just this in the +intellectual life of Jesus. "The great fact concerning it is this," he +says, "that in him the intellect never works alone. You never can +separate its workings from the complete operation of the entire +nature. He never simply knows, but always loves and resolves at the +same time."[41] + +3. _The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion._--Moreover, it +probably may be fairly claimed that all of the mystical recognition of +the emotional which is valuable or even legitimate, is preserved, and +far more safely and sanely conceived, in a strictly personal +conception of religion. It may well be doubted, if it is possible in +any other way, both to do justice to feeling in religion, and at the +same time to keep feeling in its proper place. Is it possible briefly +to indicate both the recognition of emotion and the control of emotion +in religion? + +The true mysticism recognizes that the supreme joy is "joy in personal +life"--joy in entering into the revelation of a person; and it +believes with reason that a growing acquaintance with God must have +such heights and depths of meaning as no other personal relation can +have. It is not, therefore, afraid or distrustful of true emotion--of +joy or peace, of intense longing or of keen satisfaction--in the +religious life. + +But the true mysticism knows at the same time that deep revelation of +a person is made only to the reverent, that the conditions are in the +highest degree ethical, and above all must be recognized to be so in +religion. It does view, then, with deep distrust an emotional emphasis +in religion that ignores the ethical. It cannot forget that Christ +thought that everything must be tested by its fruits in life. Paul, +too, insisted on applying the test of an active ministering love to +the highly valued emotional experiences of the Corinthians; and writes +to the Galatians that there is but one infallible proof of the working +of the Spirit in them--a righteous life: "love, joy, peace, +longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." + +And a true mysticism knows that the spirit, reverent of personality, +leads to a self-restraint that does not seek the emotional experience +simply as such on _any_ conditions; but, knowing the supreme +psychological conditions of happiness and character and influence, it +loses itself in an unselfish love and in absorbing work, and +understands that it must simply let the experiences come. It will have +nothing, therefore, to do with strained emotion, or with the working +up of feeling for its own sake. It seeks health, not merely the signs +of health. It prizes, therefore, the joy that simply proclaims itself +as the sign of the normal life and so positively strengthens and +cheers, but it will have nothing of the strain of emotion which is +drain. + +It is interesting to notice that it is exactly this true psychological +attitude concerning the emotional life that Phillips Brooks believed +that he found perfectly reflected in Jesus. "The sensitiveness of +Jesus to pain and joy," he says, "never leads him for a moment to try +to be sad or happy with direct endeavor; nor, is there any sign that +he ever judges the real character of himself or any other man by the +sadness or the happiness that for the moment covers his life. He +simply lives, and joy and sorrow issue from his living, and cast their +brightness and their gloominess back upon his life; but there is no +sorrow and no joy that he ever sought for itself, and he always kept a +self-knowledge underneath the joy or sorrow, undisturbed by the +moment's happiness or unhappiness."[42] + +How far from this objectivity and this healthful emotional life is the +atmosphere of most of our devotional books, and, one might say, of all +the manuals of ordinary mysticism! That this difficulty should +confront us in devotional literature is very natural; for such writing +commonly aims to give the emotional sense of reality in religion; and +is, therefore, particularly under the temptation to show and to +produce a straining after the emotion, as for its own sake. Moreover, +the very introspection, almost inevitably involved in the reading and +writing of devotional books, tends to bring about an artificial change +in the religious experience, and so to introduce into it the abnormal. + +But the social consciousness, so far as it affects religion, not only +tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the +personal, and so to keep the truly mystical, but it is even more plain +that it must tend to insist upon the ethical in religion. + +[35] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 201 ff. + +[36] _Op. cit._, pp. 210 ff. + +[37] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 307. + +[38] James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 294, 295. + +[39] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 16. + +[40] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, 633-677; especially 633, 634, +667, 671, 677; Muensterberg, _Psychology and Life_, pp. 23-28. + +[41] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 219. + +[42] _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 156. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +_THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION_ + + +I. THE PRESSURE OF THE PROBLEM + +The social consciousness looks to the thorough ethicizing of +religion. If the social consciousness is to be regarded as +historically justified, it must believe that this growing sense of +brotherhood and consequent obligation is simply our response to the +on-working of God's own plan, God's own will expressing itself in us. +The purpose to recognize the will of God, thus necessarily involves +the recognition of human relations, since, as soon as conscience is +strongly stirred in any direction, religion can but feel, in this +demand of conscience, the demand of God, and, therefore, must bring +the convictions of the social consciousness into religion. Indeed, it +may be well believed that Kaftan is right in his insistence that it is +exactly through the practical, that is, in the realm of the ethical, +that knowledge arises from faith.[43] + +In any case, it is evident that the old problem of faith and works, of +religion and ethics, of the first and second commandments, meets us +here in a way not to be put aside. With an ethical demand so insistent +as that of the social consciousness no religion can be at peace that +is not with equal insistence ethical. We are bound, then, to show how +communion with God, the supreme desire to find God, necessarily +carries with it active love for men. We must show how we truly commune +with God in such active service. The social consciousness, thus, +positively thrusts upon every religious man, who believes in it, the +problem of the thorough ethicizing of religion. Or, to put the matter +in a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the +sacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions +of our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this +conviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to +us. This is the problem. + + +II. THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM + +All will probably agree that religion is communion with God. We have +seen why the social consciousness cannot accept a falsely mystical +view of that communion. For similar reasons, it must make absolutely +subordinate all non-ethical and simply mysterious means which make no +appeal to the conscience and to the reason--the falsely sacramental. +Only the person is truly sacramental. Much else may be of value, but +the touch of personal life is the only absolute essential in religion. +We have seen, also, why the social consciousness tends to regard +religion as a strictly personal relation. + +Our problem thus becomes: How does the desire for personal relation +with God, the desire for God himself, lead directly into the ethical +life--into the full and practical recognition of the ethical demands +of the social consciousness? + +To guard against any possible misconception, it is, perhaps, well to +say at the start that the desire for a personal relation with God has +no purpose of returning by another route to the false position of +mysticism, in the claim of special private revelations that are +exclusively for it. It expects, rather, personal conviction of that +great revelation that is common to all, and, moreover, it knows well +that no personal relation is essentially sensuous, and it certainly +looks for no sensuous relation to God. + +It may be worth while, too, to reverse our question for a moment, and +ask how morality necessarily involves religion. The true moral life is +the fulfilment of all personal relations, and as such can least of all +omit the greatest and most fundamental relation which gives being and +meaning and value to all the rest--the relation to God. The fully +moral life, therefore, must include religion. The unity of the two may +be thus seen. + +But the present inquiry looks at the matter from the other side, and +seeks a careful and thoroughgoing answer to the question: Why is the +Christian religion, as a personal relation to God, necessarily +ethical? + + +III. THE ANSWER + +1. _Involved in Relation to Christ._--In the first place, then, it +probably may be safely claimed that there is no test of the moral life +of a man so certain as his attitude toward Christ. Setting aside, now, +any special religious claims of Christ altogether, and recognizing him +only as earth's highest character, the supreme artist in living, who +knows the secret of the moral life more surely and more perfectly than +any other, he becomes even so the surest touch-stone of character; and +the iron filings will not be more certainly attracted to the magnet +than will the men of highest character be attracted to Christ when he +is really seen as he is. There is no test of character so certain as +the test of one's personal relation to the best persons. The personal +attitude toward Christ is the supreme test. In receiving him, in +becoming his disciples in a completer sense than we own ourselves the +disciples of any other, we make the supreme moral choice of our lives; +and, if no more is true than has been already said, we so accept as a +matter of fact the fullest historical revelation of God at the same +time. The ethical and religious here fall absolutely together. And all +the subsequent choices of our Christian life, if true to Christ, are +necessarily moral. + +2. _The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command._--In the second +place, the sense of the presence of God, of the divine will laid upon +us, if we have the religious feeling at all, comes to us nowhere in +our common life so certainly and so persistently as in a sense of +obligation which we cannot shake off, a sense of facing a clear duty. +To run away from this, we are made to feel, is plainly to run away +from God. Is this not a simply true interpretation of the common +consciousness? Here, then, the religious experience is in the very +sphere of the ethical, and identical with it. + +3. _Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts._--Again, God's gifts in +religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the +unwilling soul; just to receive them, therefore, implies willingness +to use them; and faith becomes inevitably both "a gift and an +activity." However one names God's gifts in religion, so long as the +relation is kept a spiritual one at all, receiving the gift requires a +real ethical attitude in the recipient. A real forgiveness, for +example, involves personal reconciliation, restored personal +relations; and reconciliation is mutual. One cannot, then, be said in +any true sense to accept forgiveness from God who is not himself in an +attitude of reconciliation with God, of harmony of will with him. In +the same way, peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, life, God's own +life, cannot be really given to any man without an ethical response on +his part in a definite attitude of will. Anything arbitrary here is, +therefore, necessarily shut out. God's gifts in religion are of such a +kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul. They are +not things to be mechanically poured out on men. We have no need, +consequently, to guard our religious statements in this respect. We +cannot even receive from God the spiritual gifts of the religious +relation without the active will. Here, too, religion is certainly +ethical. + +4. _Communion with God, through Harmony with His Ethical Will._--Or, +one may say, desire for real communion with God seeks God himself, not +things, or some experience merely. But the very center of personality +is the will; any genuine seeking of God himself, therefore, to commune +with him, requires unity with his ethical will. The deepest religious +motive is at the same time, thus, an impulse to character. + +5. _The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart._--Christ's own +statement--"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see +God"--suggests another aspect of this essential unity of the religious +and the ethical. The connection in the beatitude is no chance one. The +highest and completest revelation of personality, human or divine, can +be made only to the reverent. God reveals himself to the reverent +soul, and most of all to the pure--to those souls that are reverent of +personality throughout and under the severest pressure. Therefore, the +pure in heart shall see God. "The secret of the Lord is with them that +fear him."[44] The vision of God requires the spirit that is reverent +of personality, and this spirit is the abiding source of the finest +ethical living. + +6. _Sharing the Life of God._--But perhaps the clearest and most +satisfactory putting of the relation is this. The very meaning of +religion is sharing the life of God. As soon, now, as God is conceived +as essentially holy and loving, a God of character, a living will and +not a substance--and Christianity to be true to itself, must always so +conceive him--so soon religion and morality are indissolubly united. +God's life, according to Christ's teaching, is the life of constant +and perfect self-giving. To share the life of God, therefore, to share +his single purpose, is to come into the life of loving service. The +two fall together from the point of view of the social consciousness. +And we are "saved," we come into the real religious life, only in the +proportion in which we have really learned to love. "Everyone that +loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God."[45] The old separation of +religion and character is impossible from this point of view. + +7. _Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life._--But we may +still profitably press the question: Is the Christian religion--the +special faith in the revelation of God in Christ, the best way to +righteousness? does it necessarily, most naturally, most +spontaneously, and most joyfully carry righteousness of life with it? +If this is to be true, Christian faith, in Herrmann's language, "must +give men the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty."[46] It +may be doubted whether any one has dealt with this question as +satisfactorily as Herrmann himself, and a few sentences may well be +quoted from his discussion. "We know that the ordinary instinctive way +in which men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes it +impossible to submit honestly to the demands of duty, and we see, +also, the falsity of the childish idea of the mystics that this +instinct should be extirpated; it follows, then, that we can only seek +moral deliverance in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving +for life.... Now just such a feeling of perfect inner contentment is +possible to the Christian, and he has it just in proportion as he +understands that God turns to him in Christ.... This is redemption, +that Christ creates within us a living joy, whose brightness beams +even from the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a power it cannot +comprehend. And the power that works redemption is the fact that in +our world there is a Man whose appearance can at any moment be to us +the mighty Word of God, snatching us out of our troubles and making us +to feel that he desires to have us for his own, and so setting us free +from the world and from our own instinctive nature."[47] + +Christ, that is, has no desire to withdraw himself from the test of +the largest life. He is able to satisfy the highest demands for life. +He courts the trial. He claims to offer life, the largest life. "I +came," he says, "that they may have life, and may have it +abundantly."[48] His way of deliverance is not negative but positive, +not limiting but fulfilling. He is able to give such largeness of life +in himself, such inner satisfaction of the craving for life, as makes +a lower life lose its power over us, the larger and higher life +driving out the meaner and lower. This is positive victory, +supplanting the lower with the higher; just as in literature, in +music, in friendship, and in love, we expect the best to break down +the taste for the lower. + +8. _The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ, Ethically +Conditioned._--But the thought of Christ's satisfying our highest +claim on life deserves to be carried further, if it is to be saved +from vagueness and to have its full power with us. The highest value +in the world is a personal life. So Christ has made us feel. It is +finally the only value, for all other so-called values borrow their +value from persons. The highest joy conceivable is entering into the +riches of another's personal life through his willing self-revelation. +Now it is no fine fancy that the supremely rich life of the world's +history is Christ's. God can only be known, if we are not to fall back +into the vagaries of mysticism, in his concrete manifestation; and God +opens out in Christ, the New Testament believes, the inexhaustible +wealth of his own personal life. It is God's highest gift, the gift of +himself. "No one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any +know the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to +reveal him."[49] "This is life eternal, that they should know thee, +the only true God, and him whom thou didst send."[50] So it seemed to +Paul: "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this +grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of +Christ."[51] Do we not here catch a glimpse of what the depth of that +satisfaction with the inner life of God in Christ may be? + + "For He who hath the heart of God sufficed, + Can satisfy all hearts,--yea, thine and mine." + +Only the riches of a personal life can satisfy our claim on life, our +desire for life; and, ultimately, we can be fully satisfied only with +God's own life in the fullest revelation he can make of it to us men. +Only this can be "the unspeakable gift." The thirst for God, for the +living God, is a simply true expression of the human heart when it +comes to real self-knowledge. + +But the riches of the personal life of Christ are necessarily hidden +to one who does not come into the sharing of Christ's purpose. The +condition of the vision is ethical. The very satisfaction, therefore, +of our craving for life constantly impels to a more perfect union with +the will of Christ; for such complete entering into the life of +another with joy implies profound agreement. The desire for life, +therefore, for God's own life, for communion with God, itself impels +to character. Faith does here give "the power to submit with joy to +the claims of duty," and religion is ethical in the very heart of it. + +9. _The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God._--The same +unity of the religious and ethical life is helpfully seen, if we put +the matter in one further and slightly different way. Only the +Christian religion, faith in God as Father revealed in Christ, enables +us to welcome the stern demands of duty and so gives us inner +deliverance, joy, and liberty in the moral life; for now the moral +demand is seen, not as task only, but as opportunity. For Christ, the +law of God is a revelation of the love of God; it is a gracious +indication--a secret whispered to us--of the lines along which we are +to find our largest and richest life; it is not a limitation of life, +but a way to larger life. Not, then, the avoidance, as far as +possible, of the law of God, but the completest fulfilment of it is +the road to life--following the hint of the law into the remotest +ramifications, and into the inmost spirit, of the life. + +The other attitude which assumes that the law is a hindrance to life +is a distinct denial of the love of God. It implies that God lays upon +us demands which are not for our good. It refuses to accept as reality +Christ's manifestation of God as Father. Real belief in the love of +God, on the other hand, must take the fearful out of his commands. To +be "freed from the law," now, has quite a different meaning: not the +taking off from us of the moral demand, but the inner deliverance, +that would not have the command removed, but finds life _in_ it, and +obeys it freely and joyfully. Only a thoroughgoing and fundamental +faith in the Fatherhood of God can bring such inner deliverance, even +as we have seen that only such a faith can really ground the social +consciousness. And such a faith only Christ has proved adequate to +bring. + +With this light, now, we feel, in every demand of duty, the presence +of God, and in this presence of God the pledge of life, not a +limitation of life. The religious life desires God, and it finds God +never so certainly as in the purpose fully to face duty. Every one of +the relations of life is, thus, turned to with joy by the religious +man, as sure to be a further channel of the revelation of God. The +thirst for God drives to the faithful fulfilment of the human +relation. Religion becomes joyfully ethical. + +Nor is there any possibility of abandonment to the will of God _in +general_, as the mystic seems often to feel. God's will means +particulars all along the way of our life; and there is no communion +with God except in this ethical will in particulars. At no point, +therefore, can the religious life withdraw itself from the daily duty +and maintain its own existence. The constant inevitable condition of +the religious communion is the ethical will. Our providential place is +God's place to find us. Where God has put us, just there he will best +find us. This is further seen in the fact that the true Christian +experience is a constant paradox: God ever satisfying, and yet ever +impelling--never allowing us to remain where we are, but holding up to +us the always higher ideal beyond; the law is ever, "Of his fulness we +all received, and grace in place of grace."[52] The deepening +communion with God is only through a constantly deepening moral life. + +Such a thoroughgoing ethicizing of religion as the social +consciousness demands, we need not hesitate, therefore, to believe is +possible. The truer religion is to its own great aspiration after God, +the more certainly is it ethical. + +But the social consciousness, so far as it influences religion, not +only tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize +the personal and the ethical, it also tends to emphasize in religion +the concretely, historically Christian. + +[43] Cf. _American Journal of Theology_, Oct., 1898, p. 824. + +[44] Psalm 25:14. + +[45] I John 4:7. + +[46] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 230. + +[47] _Op. cit._, pp. 232-234. + +[48] John 10:10. + +[49] Matt. 11:27. + +[50] John 17:3. + +[51] Eph. 3:8. + +[52] John 1:16. Cf. Herrmann, _Op. cit._, pp. 92, 93. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE HISTORICALLY +CHRISTIAN IN RELIGION_ + + +The fact that the social consciousness tends to emphasize in +religion the concretely historically Christian, has been so inevitably +involved in the preceding discussions, that it can be treated very +briefly. + + +I. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDS HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATION + +The justification of the social consciousness, we have seen,[53] must +be preeminently from history. Neither nature nor speculation can +satisfy it. It needs to be able to believe in a living God who is in +living relation to living men. It needs just such a justification as +historical Christianity, and only historical Christianity, can give; +it needs the assurance of an objective divine will in the world, +definitely working in the line of its own ideals. It needs also to be +able to give such definite content to the thought of God as shall be +able to satisfy its own strong insistence upon the rational and the +ethical as historical. + + +II. CHRISTIANITY'S RESPONSE TO THIS NEED + +If religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then, +there must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in +actual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God +of mystic contemplation. This discernment of God in the real world, in +actual history, is the glory even of the Old Testament; and it came, +as we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. And it is +such a real revelation of the real God that Christianity finds +preeminently in Christ. It can say to the social consciousness: Make +no effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a +concrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial +ethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of Christ--the greatest +and realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own +legitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of +all the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your +own being. + +If this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social +consciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it +will tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely, +historically Christian. + +The natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then, +may be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely +mystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to +keep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in +religion; and it needs the concretely, historically Christian. + +[53] Cf above, pp. 59 ff. + + + + +THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +_GENERAL RESULTS_ + + +The question of this third division of our inquiry is this: To what +changed points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so +to what better appreciation of Christian truth, does the social +consciousness of our time lead? The question is raised here, as in the +case of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical +connection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact. +It means simply: With what changes in theological statements would the +social consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic? + +Certain general results are clear from the start, and might be +anticipated from any one of several points of view. + + +I. THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY IN PERSONAL TERMS + +In the first place, the social consciousness means, we have found, +emphasis on the fully personal--a fresh awakening to the significance +of the person and of personal relations. Its whole activity is in the +sphere of personal relations. Hence, as in the conception of religion, +so here, so far as the social consciousness affects theology at all, +it will tend everywhere to bring the personal into prominence, and it +certainly will be found in harmony ultimately with the attempt to +conceive theology in terms of personal relations. These are for the +social consciousness the realest of realities; and if theology is to +be real to the social consciousness, then it must make much of the +personal. Theology, thus, it is worth while seeing, is not to be +personal _and_ social, but it will be social--it will do justice to +the social consciousness--if it does justice to the fully personal; +for, in the language of another, "man is social, just in so far as he +is personal."[54] + +The foreign and unreal seeming of many of the old forms of statement, +it may well be noted in passing, has its probable cause just here. +They were not shaped in the atmosphere of the social consciousness. +They got at things in a way we should not now think of using. The +method of approach was too merely metaphysical and individualistic and +mystical, and the result seems to us to have but slight ethical or +religious significance. The arguments that now move us most, in this +entire realm of spiritual inquiry, are moral and social rather than +metaphysical and mystical. It is interesting to see, for example, how +such arguments for immortality as that of the simplicity of the soul's +being--and most of those used by Plato--and how such arguments even +for the existence of God as those of Samuel Clarke from time and +space, have become for us merely matters of curious inquiry. We can +hardly imagine men having given them real weight. A similar change +seems to be creeping over the laborious attempts metaphysically to +conceive the divinity of Christ. The question is shifting its position +for both radical and conservative to a new ground--from the +metaphysical and mystical to the moral and social; though some +radicals who regard themselves as in the van of progress have not yet +found it out, and so find fault with one for not continually defining +himself in terms of the older metaphysical formulas and shibboleths. +The considerations, in all these questions and in many others, which +really weigh most with us now, are considerations which belong to the +sphere of the personal spiritual life. Ultimately, no doubt, a +metaphysics is involved here too; but it is a metaphysics whose final +reality is spirit, not an unknown substance--Locke's "something, I +know not what." + +The unsatisfactoriness of even so honored a symbol as the Apostles' +Creed, as a permanently adequate statement of Christian faith, must +for similar reasons become increasingly clear in the atmosphere of the +social consciousness. One wonders, as he goes carefully over it, that +so many concrete statements could be made concerning the Christian +religion, which yet are so little ethical. The creed seems almost to +exclude the ethical. It has nothing to say, except by rather distant +implication, of the character of God, of the character of Christ, or +of the character of men. The life of Christ between his birth and his +death are untouched. The considerations that really weigh most with +us--as they did with the apostles--in making us Christians, certainly +do not come here to prominent expression. This whole difference of +atmosphere is the striking fact; and were it not that we instinctively +interpret its phrases in accordance with our modern consciousness, we +should feel the difference much more than we do. + +What the previous discussion has called the truly mystical--the +recognition of the whole man, of the entire personality--is coming in +increasingly to correct both the falsely mystical and the falsely +metaphysical. We are arguing now, in harmony with the social +consciousness, from the standpoint of the broadly rational, not from +that of the narrowly intellectual. + + +II. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD, AS THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE IN THEOLOGY + +One might reach essentially the same general results from the +influence of the social consciousness, by seeing that, so far as it +deepens for us the meaning of the personal, it will deepen immediately +our conception of the Fatherhood of God--the central and dominating +doctrine in all theology--and so affect all theology. For, with a +change in the conception of God, no doctrine can go wholly untouched. +Every step into a deeper feeling for the personal--and the growth of +the modern social consciousness is undoubtedly a long step in that +direction--deepens necessarily religion and theology. Perhaps the +possible results here can be illustrated in no way better than by +recalling Patterson DuBois' putting of the needed change in the +conception of the proper attitude of a father toward his child. We are +not to say, he writes: "I will conquer that child, no matter what it +may cost him," but we are to say, "I will help that child to conquer +himself, no matter what it may cost me." Now that change in point of +view is a well-nigh perfect illustration of the social consciousness +in a given relation, and it cannot be doubted that it is a true +expression of Christ's thought of the Fatherhood of God; but has it +really dominated through and through our theological statements? +Manifestly, what it means to us that God is Father depends on what we +have come to see in fatherhood. And Principal Fairbairn, in the second +part of his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, has given us a +good illustration of how much it means for theology to be in earnest +in making the Fatherhood of God the determining doctrine in theology. + + +III. CHRIST'S OWN SOCIAL EMPHASES + +Again, if the general influence of the social consciousness upon +theological doctrine is to be recognized at all, it is evident that a +Christian theology must take full account of Christ's own social +emphases. By loyalty to these, it will expect best to meet the need of +an enlightened social consciousness. It will strive thus--to use +Professor Peabody's instructive summary of "the social principles of +the teaching of Jesus"--to be true to "the view from above, the +approach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom, +personality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim. +The supreme truth that this is God's world gave to Jesus his spirit of +social optimism; the assurance that man is God's instrument gave to +him his method of social opportunism; the faith that in God's world +God's people are to establish God's kingdom gave him his social +idealism. He looks upon the struggling, chaotic, sinning world with +the eye of an unclouded religious faith, and discerns in it the +principle of personality fulfilling the will of God in social +service."[55] + +And every one of these three great social principles of Jesus has +obvious theological applications, not yet fully made. + +The social consciousness, indeed, well illustrates Fairbairn's +admirable statement of how progress is to be expected in theology. +"The longer the history [of Christ]," he says, "lives in the +[Christian] consciousness and penetrates it, the more does the +consciousness become able to interpret the history in its own terms +and according to its own contents. The old pagan mind into which +Christianity first came could not possibly be the best interpreter of +Christianity, and the more the mind is cleansed of the pagan the more +qualified it becomes to interpret the religion. It is, therefore, +reasonable to expect that the later forms of faith should be the truer +and purer."[56] + +Now the social consciousness itself is a genuine manifestation of the +spirit of Christ at work in the world, and the mind permeated with +this social consciousness is consequently better able to turn back to +the teaching of Jesus and give it proper interpretation. + + +IV. THE REFLECTION IN THEOLOGY OF THE CHANGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF +RELIGION + +Once more, theology, as an expression of religion, will at once +reflect any change in the conception of religion. The influence of the +social consciousness upon religion, already traced, will, therefore, +inevitably pass over into theology. This means nothing less than a +changed point of view, in the consideration of each doctrine. For +theology must then recognize clearly that it can build on no falsely +mystical conception of communion with God; but, while keeping the +elements in mysticism which are justified by the social consciousness, +it will require of itself throughout a formulation of doctrine in +terms that shall be thoroughly personal, thoroughly ethical, and +indubitably loyal to the concretely historically Christian. Many +traditional statements quite fail to meet so searching a test; but no +lower standard can give a theology that should fully meet the demands +of the social consciousness. + +The general results of the influence of the social consciousness upon +theological doctrine, then, may be said to include: The emphasis upon +the fully personal, and so conceiving theology in terms of personal +relation; the deepening of the conception of the Fatherhood of God, +and making this the determining principle in theology; the application +of the social principles of the teaching of Jesus to theology; the +reflection in theology of the natural changes in the conception of +religion wrought by the social consciousness. Now any one of these +general results indicates the certain influence of the social +consciousness upon theology, and any one might be followed out into +helpful suggestions for the restatement of theological doctrines. + +But we shall probably most clearly and definitely answer the question +of our theme, if we ask specifically concerning the several elements +of the social consciousness: How does a deepening sense of the +like-mindedness of men, of the mutual influence of men, of the value +and sacredness of the person, of personal obligation, and of love, +tend to affect our theological point of view and mode of statement? +And our inquiry will follow these separate questions in separate +chapters, except that for the purposes of theological inference, the +last three may be appropriately grouped together. + +[54] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 259. + +[55] Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 104. + +[56] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 186. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN +UPON THEOLOGY_ + + +In definitely considering the influence of the social consciousness +upon theological doctrines, our first question becomes: How does the +deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men affect theology? + +Obviously, here, the change will be largely one of mood. We shall look +at our themes with a different feeling, and so speak differently, +modifying our methods of putting things in those slight ways that do +not seem specially significant to one who judges in the mass, but mean +very much to one who feels the finer implications of personal life. +These finer changes no one can hope to follow out in detail. Certain +of these finer changes will naturally find incidental expression in +the course of the more formal treatment. + +But our attention must be mainly given to the statement of some of the +most important of the plainer results of the principle in theology. + + +I. NO PRIME FAVORITES WITH GOD + +In the first place, this conviction of the like-mindedness of men +means that there can be no prime favorites with God. + +It can hardly help affecting the thought of election. Election will, +indeed, be thought of as qualified by the character of the chosen; for +even Paul's argument in Romans clearly recognizes this, and is, in +fact, itself a distinct argument against a narrow doctrine of +election, as others have recognized.[57] But, beyond this, the +conviction of the like-mindedness of men will especially view election +as a choice for service. The divine method of election must be in +harmony with Christ's fundamental principle of his kingdom, and with +the developing social consciousness: "Whosoever shall be first among +you, shall be servant of all."[58] It is no accident that this thought +of election as choice for preeminent service, which is indeed soundly +biblical, has come into special prominence in these days of the social +consciousness. The same change is passing over our view of the +"elect," as of the "privileged" and "governing" classes. We shall not +return to the older feeling of prime favorites of God, and the problem +of evil will find herein a certain alleviation. We shall feel +increasingly that each race and each individual have their calling and +have their compensating advantages; and that, when it comes down to +the final test of opportunity, the differences in opportunity between +individuals are far less than they seem; for to each one is given the +possibility of the largest service any man can render--the possibility +of touching closely with the very spirit of his life a few other +lives. "There are compensations," as James says, "and no outward +changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal +meaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts."[59] + + +II. THE GREAT UNIVERSAL QUALITIES AND INTERESTS, THE MOST VALUABLE + +Moreover, since equality of need among men,[60] implies, as we have +seen, a common capacity--even if in varying degrees--of entering into +the most fundamental interests of life, this belief in the essential +likeness of men is likely to carry with it that most wholesome +conviction for theology, that the great universal qualities and +interests are the most valuable. Not that which distinguishes us from +one another, but that which we have in common is most valuable. As +Howells tells the boys in his _A Boy's Town_, "the first thing you +have to learn here below, is that in essentials you are just like +every one else, and that you are different from others only in what is +not so much worth while."[61] This consideration is no small help in +facing that most difficult problem for any ideal view of the +world--the problem of evil. + +In God's world, we feel that the most common things ought to be the +best. And this growing conviction of the social consciousness comes in +to confirm our faith. The constant and simple insistence of Christ on +receptivity as a fundamental quality in his kingdom is built, in fact, +on an optimistic faith in the value of the common things. + +It is interesting to notice the varied confirmations of the value of +the common. How often we have to feel that the deepest discussions +come out with only deeper insight into the great common truths; and, +on the other hand, that in stilted philosophizing, what seems at first +sight a great discovery, proves only a perversely obscure way of +putting a common truth. + +It is the very mission of genius--of the poet in the larger sense, we +are coming to feel, to bring out the value of the common. His +distinctive mark is that he has kept a fresh sense for the great +common experiences of life. So Kipling prays: + + "It is enough that through Thy grace + I saw naught common on Thy earth. + Take not that vision from my ken." + +So, the greatest in art, Hegel contends, has a universal appeal. + +It is a wholesome and heartening conviction, I say, to bring into +theology, that the really best things are common, accessible to all, +actually shared in, to an extent beyond that which our superficial +vision seems to show. For, after all, this conviction of the social +consciousness is only bringing home to us, in a new and appreciable +way, Christ's own optimism and his own faith in the love of the +Father. It is only another illustration of Fairbairn's principle of +the Christian consciousness becoming more Christian, and so better +able to understand and interpret Christ. + +And it leads us back by this route of the social consciousness, to +emphasize in life, and in our theological thinking upon the conditions +of entering the kingdom of God, Christ's own insistence upon the two +universally human characteristics found in every child--susceptibility +and trust, which, voluntarily cherished, become teachableness and +belief in love. If God is Father indeed, and we are intended to come +to our best in association with him, these qualities must be the most +fundamental ones. And they imply no lack of virility, either, for the +highest self-assertion, as Professor Everett pointed out in his +criticism of Nietzsche, is in complete self-surrender to such a will +as God's. "When Jesus said, 'He that loseth his life shall save it,' +he said in effect--The self-surrender to which I call you is the +truest self-assertion. We find thus in the teachings of Christianity a +summons to strength far greater than that implied by the +self-assertion which is most characteristic of the teachings of +Nietzsche, because it is the assertion of a larger self."[62] + +Our outlook becomes well-nigh hopeless, when we make our tests of +admission to the kingdom so much more exclusive than Christ himself +made them. + + +III. ESSENTIAL LIKENESS UNDER VERY DIVERSE FORMS + +It is particularly important for theology that this conviction of the +like-mindedness of men has come from a growing power to discern +essential likeness under very diverse forms; for this consideration +bears not only on the problem of natural evil, but also on the problem +of sin and of the progress of Christianity. + +We have taken some curiously diverse paths to this understanding of +diverse lives. Travels, history, biography, autobiographical +fragments, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and--to no small +degree--fiction, with its stories of out-of-the-way places and +out-of-the-way peoples and of unfamiliar classes,--all have been +thoroughfares for the social consciousness here. + +We are slowly learning to see the likeness under the differences, and +so to transcend the differences even between occidental and oriental. +All this means much, not only for our practical missionary putting of +the truth, but also for our final theological statements. They will +inevitably grow simpler, larger, more universally human, and at the +same time more deep and solid. + +We are slowly learning, too, to discern a deep inner content of life +under conditions that have no appeal for us, and to see like ideals +and aspirations under very diverse forms of expression. Take, for +example, these three or four sentences--a small part of that quoted by +Professor James in his essay, _On a Certain Blindness in Human +Beings_,--from Stevenson's _Lantern-Bearers_: "It is said that a poet +has died young in the breast of the most stolid. It may be contended +rather that a (somewhat minor) bard in almost every case survives, and +is the spice of life to his possessor. Justice is not done to the +versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man's imagination. His +life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be some +golden chamber at the heart of it in which he dwells delighted."[63] +And, later, on the side of ideals, Stevenson is quoted once again: "If +I could show you these men and women all the world over, in every +stage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance +of failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still +obscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging to some +rag of honor, the poor jewel of their souls!"[64] And now, having +quoted Howells and Stevenson as theological authorities, I shall be +pardoned if, for a moment, I erect Kenneth Grahame's _Golden Age_ into +a "theological institute": "See," said my friend, bearing somewhat on +my shoulder, "how this strange thing, this love of ours, lives and +shines out in the unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields +in early morning? Barren acres, all! But only stoop--catch the light +thwartwise--and all is a silver network of gossamer! So the fairy +filaments of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole +world. Yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow--+heros +hanikate machan+--not that--nor even the placid respectable ++storge+--but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more +divine! Only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, one must +stoop!"[65] + +It means very much for the sanity of our outlook on life, and for any +possible theodicy, that we can believe the heart of such a view as +this for which Stevenson and Grahame are here contending. And what is +all this attempt to get away from this "certain blindness in human +beings," of which Professor James speaks, but a growing into one of +the fixed habits of Jesus, what Phillips Brooks calls "his discovery +of interest in people whom the world generally would have found most +uninteresting?" "And this same habit," he adds, "passing over into his +disciples, made the wide and democratic character of the new +faith."[66] + + +IV. AS APPLIED TO THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY + +It may probably be safely said that this steadily growing conviction +of the social consciousness, of the essential likeness of all men, +which is daily confirmed afresh, and the more confirmed the more +careful the study, is not likely to take kindly to the idea--which +comes into a part of Dr. McConnell's argument concerning immortality, +in his interesting book, _The Evolution of Immortality_--that living +creatures classed as men on physical grounds are not, therefore, to be +so classed on psychical grounds.[67] The considerations and +illustrations brought forward by Dr. McConnell, in connection with +this proposition, I cannot think would seem at all conclusive to +either the trained psychologist or sociologist. It is exactly the +like-mindedness of men which the social consciousness affirms, and it +has not come hastily to its conclusion. It will not quickly surrender +that conclusion. There _is_ an "evolution of immortality," and it has +been age-long, but it is pre-human. The belief in immortality so far +as it does not rest purely on the question of the moral quality of a +given human life (where the hypothesis of "immortability" may properly +enough come in) is grounded upon characteristics--like that of the +possibility of absolutely indefinite progress[68]--which in sober +scientific inquiry cannot safely be denied to any man, and must be +denied to all creatures below man. In any case, the new theory of +"immortability," so far as it is based upon the proposition here +considered, has its battle to fight out with this established +conviction of the social consciousness of the essential +like-mindedness of all men. + +There are various considerations, not all of them wholly creditable, +which will lead many to turn a willing ear to this new prophesying; +but, though it makes much of evolution, it seems to me to have the +whole trend of the social evolution against it, and to give the lie to +that patient sympathetic insight into the lives of other classes and +peoples, which is one of the finest products of the ethical evolution +of the race. If one is tempted to believe that a good large share of +the human race are really brutes in human semblance,--and our +selfishness and pride and impatience and unloving lack of insight and +desire to dominate may naturally tempt in this direction,--let him +read that chapter of Professor James to which reference has already +been made, _On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings_, and its pendant, +_What Makes a Life Significant_. It may help his theology. Let him +recall the words of Phillips Brooks concerning this "strange +hopelessness about the world, joined to a strong hope for themselves, +which we see in many good religious people." "In their hearts they +recognize indubitably that God is saving them, while the aspect of the +world around them seems to show them that the world is going to +perdition. This is a common enough condition of mind; but I think it +may be surely said that it is not a good, nor can it be a permanent, +condition. God has mercifully made us so that no man can constantly +and purely believe in any great privilege for himself unless he +believes in at least the possibility of the same privilege for other +men."[69] + + +V. CONSEQUENT LARGER SYMPATHY WITH MEN, FAITH IN MEN, AND HOPE FOR MEN + +This whole conviction of the social consciousness, of the +like-mindedness of men, leads naturally to increased _sympathy with +men_, and this in turn to still better discernment of moral and +spiritual realities. And this is of prime importance for the +theologian; for sympathetic insight, it must never be forgotten, is +the true route to spiritual verities. So far as our insight into +actual human life becomes truer, so far our theology becomes clearer +and more reasonable. + +This conviction leads also to increased _belief in men_, and +consequently to increased belief in the effectiveness of the higher +appeals. The temptation to disbelief in man was one of the underlying +temptations of Christ as he looked forward to his work; but he turned +resolutely from it, and refused to build his kingdom on any lower +appeal that implied a lack of faith in men. Nothing seems to me more +wonderful in Christ than his marvelous faith in man; for, though he +has the deepest sense of the sin of men, there is not the slightest +trace of cynicism in his thought or life. + +This recognition of likeness under diversity, too, leads to increased +_hope for men_, here and hereafter. In James' words: "It absolutely +forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of +forms of existence other than our own.... Neither the whole of truth +nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer.... No one +has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them +off-hand."[70] + +This thought helps us to greater hope for men, because, indeed, it +helps us to the discernment of genuine ideals under very different +forms of life, of the universal sense of duty and some loyalty to it, +though there is great diversity of judgment as to what is duty.[71] +But, it is here to be noted, also, that the thought of the +like-mindedness of men brings greater hope, because it helps to the +discernment of likeness, even under difference in important terms +used. We are coming to see that there is sometimes, at least, a really +strong religious faith where men do not acknowledge the term. Thus, +Bradley says: "All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the +region of ordinary facts. Some in one way, and some in others, we seem +to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In +various manners we find something higher, which supports and humbles, +both chastens and transports us. And," as a philosopher he adds, "with +certain persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is +a principal way of thus experiencing the Deity."[72] + +Even where the term Deity would be entirely abjured, we have seen with +Paulsen,[73] that a real faith essentially religious in character may +be clearly manifest. We are even coming to see that men may seem to +themselves to be contending upon opposite sides of so fundamental a +question as that of the personality of God, and yet be near together +as to their own ultimate faith and attitude, and possibly even as to +their real philosophical views of God; but the same term has come to +have such different connotations for the men, from their different +education and experience, that they simply cannot use it with the same +meaning. + +I have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical, +definitely personal religion of Jesus to the ambiguities of +philosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more +consciously and avowedly Christian. But I do not, on the other hand, +as a Christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential +likenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because +they are clothed in different garb. The life and teaching of Jesus +have worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the +limits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. There is doubtless +much "unconscious Christianity," much "unconscious following of +Christ."[74] And we are only following Christ's own counsel, when we +refuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name, +though he follows not with us.[75] Certainly, if we accept the witness +of a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of +his lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against +the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong. + +With reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening +sense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of +note, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come +into existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral +unripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. The careful +study of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific +sociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical +immaturity of men. But deeper than this recognition of moral +unripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral +and spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the +immense differences among men as to _what_ is duty, deeper than the +differences in even the most important terms used, lies this great +conviction of likeness--that all men are moral and spiritual beings, +made for relation to one another and to God; that they have ideals +that have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to +these ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral +and spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact. + + +VI. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO LIGHT, AND THE MORAL REALITY OF THE FUTURE +LIFE + +It is no accident, now, that accompanying this double social +conviction, there has come into theology a new insistence upon the +principle of judgment of a man according to his light, and +consequently also, what Professor Clarke calls "a tendency toward the +recognition of greater reality and freedom in the other life, and thus +toward the possibility of moral change."[76] Our conception of the +future life was certain to be modified by the social consciousness; +and it may be doubted if any influence of the social consciousness +upon theology can be more clearly traced historically than this. The +motives that have been working in our minds here include, on the one +hand, a wholesome sense of the imperfection of even the best human +lives; a glad discernment, on the other hand, of the presence of +genuine ideals in lives where we had thought there were none; the +certainty that, as Dr. Clarke says, "for at least one-third of mankind +the entire life of conscious and developed personality is lived in the +other world;"[77] an experienced unwillingness to say, where we cannot +see, the precise point at which the very diverse lives of men under +very diverse conditions come to full moral maturity; and the +conviction that a life that is to be moral at all must be moral +everywhere and through all time, and that where even we can see a +little, God can see much more. All these motives, now, make us refuse, +with Christ, to answer the question, "Are there few that be saved?" +And both with increasing hope, and with that increasing sense of the +seriousness and significance of life which so characterizes the social +consciousness, to urge: "Strive to enter in." The growing sense of the +likeness of men does affect our thought of the future life. The best +men, under the clearest light, have only begun; for the best, there is +still much need of growth. Who has not begun at all? For whom is there +no growth? + +Let us make no mistake here. It is no light-hearted indifference to +character, to which the genuine social consciousness leads. No age, +indeed, ever saw so clearly as ours that the most essential conditions +of happiness are in character, or was more certain that sin carries +with it its own inevitable consequences. It is not a less, but a more, +profound sense of the seriousness of the problem of moral character, +that makes us hesitate to dogmatize concerning the future life. + +To bring together, now, the conclusions of the chapter: The first +element in the social consciousness--the deepening sense of the +likeness of men--seems likely to affect theology, especially by +modifying the thought of election through emphasis upon choice for +service, and through the clear recognition that there are no prime +favorites with God; by strengthening the conviction that the great +common qualities and interests are the most valuable, and that genuine +and largely common ideals may be found under very diverse forms and +conditions; and thus, on the one hand, by opposing the denial of the +psychical likeness of men, as applied to the problem of immortality, +and, on the other hand, by bringing us to larger sympathy with men, to +larger faith in men, and to larger hope for men; and, finally, by +laying new emphasis upon judgment according to light, and upon the +moral reality and freedom of the future life. + +[57] Cf. e. g., Clarke, _Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 145. + +[58] Mark 10:44. + +[59] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 301. + +[60] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 324. + +[61] Howells, _A Boy's Town_, p. 205. + +[62] _The New World_, Dec., 1898, pp. 702, 703. + +[63] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 237. + +[64] _Op. cit._, p. 282. + +[65] P. 112. + +[66] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 253. + +[67] McConnell, _The Evolution of Immortality_, pp. 75 ff. + +[68] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 348 ff., p. 367; Lotze, _The +Microcosmus_, Book V, especially Vol. I, pp. 713, 714. + +[69] _The Candle of the Lord, and Other Sermons_, p. 154. + +[70] _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, pp. 263, 265. + +[71] Cf. above, p. 121 ff. + +[72] Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 5, 6. + +[73] Cf. above, pp. 46, 47. + +[74] Cf. Fremantle, _The World as the Subject of Redemption_, pp. +250 ff, 320 ff; Lyman Abbott, _The Outlook_, Dec. 24, 1898. + +[75] Mark 9:38, 39; Cf. Matt. 10:40-42. + +[76] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 475. + +[77] _Op. cit._, p. 469. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN +UPON THEOLOGY_ + + +From this first element of the social consciousness, we turn now to +the second, and ask, How does the deepening sense of the mutual +influence of men affect theology? + + +I. THE REAL UNITY OF THE RACE + +1. First, then, taken with the sense of the likeness of men, it can +hardly be doubted that sociology's strong feeling of the mutual +influence of men deepens for theology the thought of the real, not the +mechanical, unity of the race. The theologian believes, more than he +did, in a race whose unity is preeminently moral, rather than physical +or mystical. The truly scientific position for the theologian seems to +be, to make no mysterious assumptions, where well-known causes are +sufficient to account for the facts; and those causes which the social +consciousness clearly sees to be at work seem, in all probability, +adequate to account for the facts in discussion so far as those facts +are finite at all.[78] The theologian knows, then, a true moral +universe, with a unity which is that of the close personal, mutual +relations of like-minded spiritual beings. + +The natural goal of such a race, the only one in which they can truly +find themselves, is the kingdom of God. This conception of Christ is +first thoroughly at home with us, when we see that the true unity of +the race is that of personal moral relation. So far as men turn from +that goal, this same racial unity of the inevitable and most intimate +personal relations converts them into something approaching Ritschl's +conception of an opposing "kingdom of sin." + +Are we prepared to be thoroughly loyal to just this conception of the +unity of the race throughout our theological thinking; and so to give +up cherished ideas of "common," "transmitted," "inherited," or +"racial" sin or righteousness, of "mystical solidarity," and racial +ideal representation, etc.? It probably may be said with truth that +few, if any, theological systems have been thus loyal. Indeed, under +what seems a mistaken application of the social consciousness, and +particularly under the misleading influence of the analogy of the +organism, men have believed themselves attaining a deeper theological +view, when they have, in fact, turned away from the sober teaching of +the social consciousness. + +It may not be in vain for our theology to hear and receive with +patience a sociologist's definition of the "social mind." Upon this +point Professor Giddings says explicitly: "There is no reason to +suppose that society is a great being which is conscious of itself +through some mysterious process of thinking, separate and distinct +from the thinking that goes on in the brains of individual men. At any +rate, there is no possible way yet known to man of proving that there +is any such supreme social consciousness." Nevertheless, he adds: "To +the group of facts that may be described as the simultaneous +like-mental-activity of two or more individuals in communication with +one another, or as a concert of the emotions, thought, and will of two +or more communicating individuals, we give the name, the social mind. +This name, accordingly, should be regarded as meaning just this group +of facts and nothing more. It does not mean that there is any other +consciousness than that of individual minds. It does mean that +individual minds act simultaneously in like ways and continually +influence one another; and that certain mental products result from +such combined mental action which could not result from the thinking +of an individual who had no communication with fellow-beings."[79] + +Just so far, it may well be supposed, and no farther may we go, in +theology, in moral and spiritual inferences from the unity of the +race. We are members one of another for good and for ill, one in the +unity of the inevitable, mutual influence of like-minded persons. + + +II. DEEPENING THE SENSE OF SIN + +And this conviction, in the second place, not only deepens our sense +of the real unity of the race, it deepens also the sense of sin. And +we can hardly separate here the influence of the third element of the +social consciousness--the sense of the value and sacredness of the +person. As against a rather wide-spread and often expressed contrary +feeling, this deepening sense of sin may yet, it is believed, be +truthfully maintained, _so far as the social consciousness is really +making itself felt_. There are some disintegrating tendencies here, no +doubt, like the tendency under some applications of evolution and +evolutionary philosophy to turn all sin into a necessary stage in the +evolution. But had not Drummond reason to say: "There is one +theological word which has found its way lately into nearly all the +newer and finer literature of our country. It is not only _one_ of the +words of the literary world at present, it is perhaps _the_ word. Its +reality, its certain influence, its universality, have at last been +recognized, and in spite of its theological name have forced it into a +place which nothing but its felt relation to the wider theology of +human life could ever have earned for a religious word. That word, it +need scarcely be said, is sin."[80] + +Contrast this modern sense of sin with the almost total lack of it +among even so gifted a people of the ancient world as the Greeks, and +feel the significance of the phenomenon. But it is particularly to be +noted that this sense of sin in literature is largely due to a keener +social conscience. In fact, if the social consciousness is not a +thoroughly fraudulent phenomenon, it could hardly be otherwise; for +the social consciousness, in its very essence, is a sense of what is +due a person; and sin is always ultimately against a person, failure +to be what one ought to be in some personal relation, including +finally all the relations of the kingdom of God. We simply cannot +deepen the sense of the meaning and value of personal relations, and +not deepen, at the same time, the sense of sin. The meaning of the +Golden Rule, and so the sense of sin under it, deepens inevitably with +every step into the meaning of the person. If the one great +commandment is love, then the sin of which men need most of all to be +convicted is lack of love. + +The self-tormenting and fanciful sins of some of our devotional books +very likely are less felt. But the very existence of the social +consciousness seems to be proof that there never was so much good, +honest, wholesome sense of real sin as to-day--such sin as Christ +himself recognizes in his own judgment test. + +It may be that, in temporary absorption in the human relations, the +relation of all this to the All-Father may seem forgotten; even so, we +may well remember Christ's "Ye did it unto me." But, in fact, we must +go much farther and say, The social consciousness can only be true to +itself finally, as it goes on to see its acts in the light, most of +all, of that single, personal relation which underlies all others. We +have already seen that the social consciousness requires for its own +justification its grounding in the manifest trend of the living will +of God. With this felt identification of the will of God with love for +men, men can still less shake off easily the conviction of sin. + +Probably, most religious men argue a diminishing sense of sin, because +they feel that less is made of those consequences of sin which have +been usually connected with the future life. There may be real danger +here from shallow thinking; but here, too, the social consciousness +has only to be true to itself to be saved from any shallow estimate of +the consequences of sin here or hereafter. As the sin itself is +always, finally, in personal relations, so the most terrible results +of sin, in this life and in all lives, are in personal relations. What +it costs the man himself in cutting him off from the relations in +which all largeness of life consists, what it costs those who love +him, what it costs God,--this alone is the true measure of sin. So +judged, sin itself is feared as never before. Surely, Principal +Fairbairn is right in saying: "And so even within Christendom, sin is +never so little feared as when hell most dominates the imagination; it +needs to be looked at as it affects God, to be understood and +feared."[81] But it is the inevitable result of the social +consciousness to bring us to the deepest conviction of all these +personal relations, and so to the deepest conviction of sin. + +Another consideration deserves attention. We have a growing conviction +that our social ideal is personally realized only in Christ, and we +have given unequaled attention to that life and have such knowledge of +it, in its detailed applications, as no preceding generation has ever +had. This simply means that we have both such a sense of our moral +calling, and are face to face with such a living standard, as must +steadily deepen in us a genuine sense of real sin, in our falling so +far short of the spirit of Christ. + +Theology needs, further, to make unmistakably clear, and to use the +fact, that _this mutual influence of men holds for good_ as well as +for evil; that few greater lies have ever been told, than the +insinuation that only evil is contagious, the good not. And this +conviction of the contagion of the good, of mutual influence for good, +concerns theology particularly in three ways, all of which may be +regarded simply as illustrations or aspects of the one kingdom of God. +We are members one of another (1) in attainment of character, (2) in +personal relation to God, and (3) in confession of faith. And each of +these forms of mutual influence will need careful attention. + +In considering separately here attainment of character and relation to +God, it is not meant for a moment to admit that separation of ethics +and religion which has been already denied, but only to single out for +distinct treatment the one most important and fundamental relation of +life--relation to God. We are certainly never to forget that the +indispensable condition of right relations to God, is that a man +should have been won into willingness to share God's own righteous +purpose concerning men. + + +III. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN THE ATTAINMENT OF CHARACTER + +We know no deeper law in the building of character, than that +righteous character comes through that association with the best in +which there is mutual self-giving. The problem of character implies +not only a bare recognition of a man's moral freedom, but a sacred +respect at every point for his personality. If a man is ever to have +character at all, it must be absolutely his own; he must be won freely +into it. In this free winning to character, no association counts for +its most that is not mutual. I become in character most certainly and +rapidly like that man with whom I constantly am, to whose influence I +most fully surrender, and who gives himself most completely to me. + +We may analyze the phenomenon psychologically, as, indeed, we have +already done in showing that a true personal relation to Christ +necessarily carries with it a true ethical life. And that which held +true for religion cannot be false for theology, we may be sure. But, +in any case, we always come back finally to the fact, that character +is truly and inevitably contagious in an association in which there is +mutual surrender. Character is caught, not taught. The inner strength +of another life to which we surrender is, as Phillips Brooks somewhere +says, "directly transmissible." I suspect that the ultimate +psychological principle at work here is that of the impulsiveness of +consciousness. But, whether that be true or not, the witness to this +contagion is wide-spread among students of men. "The greatest gift the +hero leaves his race," one of our great novelists says, "is to have +been a hero." In almost identical language, a great ethical and +philosophical writer adds: "The noblest workers of our world bequeath +us nothing so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever +so glorious, is historical and transient, the majesty of their spirit +is essential and eternal." + +But one might still think, here, only of an example. The other life, +however, must be more to me than mere example. For the highest +attainment in character I need the association of some highest one, +who will give himself to me unreservedly. Redemption to real +righteousness of life cannot be without cost to the redeemer. And it +is a psychologist, facing the ultimate problem of will-strengthening, +who urges in words that might seem almost to look to Christ: "The +prophet has drunk more deeply than any one of the cup of bitterness; +but his countenance is so unshaken, and he speaks such mighty words of +cheer, that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his +own."[82] It _is_ the one great certain road to character--as it is to +appreciation of every value--to stay in the presence of the best, in +self-surrender to it. No wonder Christ said, "I am the Way." + +1. _The Application to the Problem of Redemption._--It is hardly +possible to ignore this one great known law of character-making, which +the social consciousness so presses upon us, in any thinking that is +for a moment worth while concerning our redemption by Christ. And +whatever our point of view, this consideration ought to have weight +with us. Nay, must we not make it necessarily the very center of all +our thought here? For all the realities in this problem of redeeming a +man from sin to righteousness are intensely personal, ethical, +spiritual. Now, are we to reach a deeper view of redemption, by +turning away from the deepest ethical fact to the unethical? Do we so +ground our view the more securely? Is there something holier than the +holy ethical will seen realized in Christ's life and death? For, if it +is the will in his death by which we are sanctified,[83] there can be +no sharp separation of the life and death. Must we not rather expect +that the clearest light, on the holiest in God and our personal +relation to him, will be thrown by the holiest we know in life, in our +human personal relations? + +Is not the precise method of redemption, then, to no small degree, +cleared for us right here, in this conviction of the social +consciousness of the contagion of the good in a self-surrendering +association--the only solidarity of which we can be certain? Christ +saves us, in the only certain way we know that any man is ever saved +to better living, through direct contagion of character, through his +immediate influence upon us. The power of the influence of a redeeming +person must depend upon two facts: the richness of the self that is +given, and the depth of the giving. The supremely redeeming power must +be the giving of the richest self, unto the uttermost. God has not yet +done his best for men, until he gives himself in the fullest +manifestation which can be made through man to men, and gives to the +uttermost, with no drawing back from any cost. Is it not because, +after all, back of all theories and even in spite of theories, men +have seen in the life and death of Christ just this eternal giving of +God himself, that they have been caught up into some sharing of the +same spirit, and so felt working directly and immediately upon them +the supremest redeeming power the world knows? The cross of Christ has +been God's not only _saying_, "I will help that child to conquer +himself, whatever it costs me," but God doing it, and perpetually +doing it. Not less than that must be the cost of a man's redemption. + +Character is directly transmissible in an association in which there +is mutual self-giving. It is most easily so transmissible, only at its +highest, in its most perfect manifestation, in its completest +self-giving at any cost. + +The self-giving on the part of one trying to win another into +character must precede the self-giving of the sinner; for the sinner's +own willingness to yield himself to the influence of the character of +the other must first of all be won. This initial winning of the +cooeperative will of the other is the heart of the whole battle. And +here the power relied on is not only the unconscious contagion and +imitation of character that enlists a man's interest almost by +surprise, but also the mightiest influence men know in breaking down +the resisting will and winning men consciously and with final +abandon--the influence of a patient, long-suffering, persistent, +self-sacrificing love that cannot give the sinning one up. + +Most certainly, then, redemption cannot be without cost to the +redeemer of men--not only that cost to the hero of the superior +showing of superior character in a superior task, but that other cost, +indissolubly linked indeed with this, of reverently, patiently, to the +bitter end, helping another to conquer himself--the inevitable +suffering of all redemptive endeavor for those whom one loves. This +involves (1) suffering in contact with sin, (2) suffering in the +rejection by those sinning, and most of all, (3) suffering in the sin +itself of those one loves because one loves them--suffering which is +the more intense, the more one loves. + +2. _The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of Substitution and +Propitiation._--Can we go yet a step farther here? It may be fairly +taken for granted that where the church has strongly and persistently +stood for certain modes of putting a doctrine--though the precise +putting may be unfortunate--that in all probability there is there +some real and important truth after which the consciousness of the +church is dimly feeling. Starting, now, from this same great law of +the contagion of character and the inevitable influence of an +association in which there is mutual self-giving, is it not possible +to show that there is a strict ethical and spiritual sense that we can +understand, in which Christ's suffering may be truly called vicarious, +and himself a substitute for us, and a propitiation? + +It is, of course, not for a moment forgotten that, in Dr. Clarke's +language, "a God who will himself provide a propitiation has no need +of one in the sense which the word has ordinarily borne. Some richer +and nobler meaning must be present if the word is appropriate to the +case."[84] But it is not likely that a purely ethical and spiritual +view of the atonement, which sees the problem as a strictly personal +one--and this seems to the writer the only true position--can ever +succeed in the hearts of the great body of the membership of the +churches, if it cannot show, at the same time, that it is able in some +real way to take up into itself these thoughts of substitution and +propitiation. The writer finds much of the old language about the +atonement as offensive to his moral sense as any man well can. But +that there is an absolutely universal human need for something like +that to which the old language of substitution and propitiation +looked, he cannot doubt. It seems to show itself in this, that no man +with real moral sense, probably, cares to put himself at the end of +his life, say, in the attitude of the Pharisee rather than in that of +the Publican. If one sets aside all spectacular elements in the +judgment, and even denies altogether any great single final assize for +all men, still he cannot avoid the thought of some judgment upon his +life. As Dr. Clarke says again: "We are not our own masters in going +out of this world; we go we know not whither. Yet our going is not +without its just and holy method. Our place and lot in the life that +is beyond must be determined righteously, in accordance with the life +that we have lived thus far, that the next stage in our existence may +be what it ought to be."[85] + +However, now, that judgment of God may be expressed, no man can hope +to face the test proposed by Christ in the twenty-fifth of Matthew, +still less the test implied in Christ's own life, and feel that he has +_already_ attained. He knows himself to be at best only a faulty +growing child, with some real spirit of obedience in his heart. And it +is particularly to be noted, that exactly that man must stand most +definitely for the reality of some genuinely ethical judgment, who has +most insisted upon the necessarily ethical character of the religious +life. Moreover, the normal experience of the deepening Christian life +is an increasing sense of sin. Upon this point, too, the social +consciousness is witness. + +What, now, makes it possible for a man to expect, in any sense, a +favorable judgment of God upon his life? If God makes any separation +of men in the world to come, he certainly cannot divide them into +perfect and imperfect men. Judged by any complete standard, all are +imperfect. Or if, without separation, God in any sense, in the most +inner way, passes judgment, how does approval fall upon any? And upon +whom does it fall? Must not every man who wishes to be clear and +honest with himself fairly face these questions? + +And Christ's own thought of God as Father must be our key here. And +the matter may well be counted worth a more careful analysis than it +often gets. How does a father distinguish between what he calls an +obedient and a disobedient child? Both are faulty. How in any fair +sense may one be called obedient? To the earthly father, that child is +called an obedient child, not who is deliberately setting his will +against his father's with no intention to cooeperate with the father's +purpose for him, but whose loyal intention is to do the father's will, +really to cooeperate with the father in the father's own purpose for +the child's life. When, now, this child is carried away by some gust +of temptation and disobeys, and then returns in penitence to the +father, evidently viewing the sin, so far as his experience allows, as +the father views it, and heartily putting it away, the father, _either +with or without penalty_, restores the child to full personal relation +to himself; and that is the vital point. And, though he neither judges +the past life as without failure, nor expects the future to be without +failure, he approves the child, as in a true sense obedient. He is an +approved child. + +What is it that satisfies the father in such a case? Upon what does he +rely in his hope for matured character in the child? What, in biblical +language, "covers" for the father the actual disobediences of the past +and the certain disobediences of the future, and enables him in a +sense to ignore both in his approval of the child? Certainly, the +present purpose of the child, the child's honest intention to +cooeperate with the father in the father's purpose for him. Yes; but as +certainly, it seems to the writer, _not that alone_. The father's hope +for his child's steady growth in righteousness depends not only on the +child's present intention, but much more upon the father's own +intention never to give up in his attempt at any cost to help that +child to conquer himself.[86] The father may be said here in a true +sense to propitiate himself; and his own fixed purpose has become a +partial substitute for the wavering purpose of the child. + +And the child's full righteousness is seen, not merely in an attitude +of immediate present obedience, but especially in his loyal acceptance +of his filial relation--in his honest surrender to his father's +influence. And the father can now say, Because my child accepts +heartily his relation to me, and honestly throws himself open to it to +let it be to him all it can and work its own work in him, I may +approve him; for this relation to me which he so takes has only to go +on, to work out its complete results in a matured character. In the +hearty acceptance of this filial relation to me, there is contained +the promise of the end. + +Just this attitude exactly, and no other, it seems to the writer, God +takes toward men in his revelation in Christ. Christ is God's own +showing forth of himself. "God was in Christ reconciling the world +unto himself."[87] "Propitiation," Beysclag truly says, "is blotting +out, making amends for sin in God's eyes. Now what can cover the sin +of the world in God's eyes? Only a personality and a deed which +contain the power of actually delivering the world from its sin."[88] + +We have seen, it may be hoped, just how God's self-revealing in Christ +does have this actual power, and becomes, thus, a true propitiation in +the highest moral sense, in the only sense in which God can wish a +propitiation, and in the only sense in which we can ever need a +propitiation. Our final hope for that true salvation, which is the +sharing of the life of God and the involved likeness of character with +God, is in God's own long-suffering, redeeming activity. Only as +_that_ may be remembered, in connection with our surrender to it, may +we hope to stand approved before the judgment of God. We are not +judged alone before the judgment of God. In a very real sense the +judge himself stands with us. Not what God is able to believe about +this man thought of as standing alone, but what he may believe about +this man standing in a living, surrendering association with himself, +is the ground of judgment. We may not separate here the work of God +and the work of Christ, as the New Testament does not separate them. +In constant reliance upon the constant redeeming activity of the +Father here and hereafter, we children go hopefully on our way. + +Put into the language of the blood covenant, where the blood has all +its significance as life--the giving of life, the sharing of life, the +closest and most indissoluble union of lives--this is to say, there is +no atonement, no reconciliation, no remission of sins, no +forgiveness--and these are all essentially identical terms--without +shedding of blood, that is, without complete giving of life on both +sides, Christ giving himself not only _for_ us in seeking us out, but +_to_ us in complete reconciliation and renewal of life. It means that +only God, the very life of God, sharing God's life, can really save +one from his sins. God must pour his life into one, and he does, in +Christ. + +This seems to be the heart of the whole matter; but certain +considerations may be still added, as indicating how far a purely +ethical and spiritual view of the atonement may go, in meeting the +human need expressed in these older terms of substitution and +propitiation. + +There must be a wrath of God against wilful sin, a complete +disapproval of it, and all the more because God loves the sinner. God +is a consuming fire for sin in us, because he loves us. That wrath +cannot be propitiated, that disapproval cannot be satisfied, in any +effective way, so long as the sin continues. The punishment of the sin +in its inevitable consequences, will go on in the very fidelity of +God. But for any real satisfaction of God, the sin itself must cease, +and there must be assurance of righteousness to come. The sinner must +come to share God's hatred of the sin and God's positive purpose of +love. Hence the expiation of the sin, the propitiation of the wrath of +God, the satisfaction of God--so far as these terms still have +meaning, and so far as they express Christ's work--consist (1) in +winning men to repentance, to sharing God's hatred of their sin, (2) +in helping men to a real power against sin, and (3) in the assurance +of perfecting righteousness which is contained in the relation to God +honestly accepted by men. When, now, the unfilial spirit is thus +changed into a completely filial spirit--through the fullest +acceptance by the child of the father's purpose for him, and through +the child's throwing himself completely open to the influence of the +father--the personal relation _is_ thereby inevitably changed, +personal reconciliation is achieved. It is impossible to think it +otherwise. And so the chief pain in the previous relation is done away +both for God and man; though the punishment, in the consequences of +sin in other respects, is not thereby set aside. + +But, further, so far now as the power of this new personal relation to +God in Christ begins actively to counteract the consequences of sin in +us, as it will assuredly do, God's work in Christ becomes a direct +substitute for that punishment of us that would else inevitably +follow. And yet the process is wholly ethical; for the results of +righteousness can actually occur in us, only in so far as we come into +harmony with Christ's purpose for us. + +Even so far, we may believe, does the social consciousness, in its +emphasis upon the mutual influence of persons go, in leading us into +the secret of the attainment of character--into the heart of God's +redemption of men. + + +IV. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN OUR PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD + +What, now, in the second place, does the mutual influence of men for +good mean for theology in the individual relation to God? Here it may +be said at once, that faith is as directly contagious as character. + +1. _In Coming into the Kingdom._--We are introduced through others +into all spheres of value, including friendship even with God. In the +atmosphere of those who already feel the value, our interest is +aroused; we find it possible at least to take those initial steps of a +dawning attention, which give the value opportunity to make its own +impression upon us, and bring us to an appreciation, to a faith of our +own. Only so is that most difficult of all tasks in the redemption of +a man--that first stirring of a new appetite, a new desire, a new +aspiration, a new ideal--accomplished. + +We are members one of another here to an extent that deserves ever +fresh emphasis. We cannot too often say to ourselves, Had it not been +that there were those who actually entered into the meaning of the +revelation of God in Christ--who, in John's language, "beheld his +glory"--the record of that revelation never could have come down to +us. Christianity must have perished at its birth. "Hence," in the +vital language of Herrmann, "the picture of his inner life could be +preserved in his church or 'fellowship' alone. But, further, this +picture so preserved can be understood only when we meet with men on +whom it has wrought its effect. We need communion with Christians in +order that, from the picture of Jesus which his Brotherhood has +preserved, there may shine forth that inner life which is the real +heart of it. It is only when we see its effects, that our eyes are +opened to its reality so that we may thereby experience the same +effect. Thus we never apprehend the most important element in the +historical appearance of Jesus until his people make us feel it. The +testimony of the New Testament concerning Jesus is the work of his +church, and its exposition is the work of the church, through the life +which that church develops and gains for itself out of this treasure +which it possesses."[89] + +The Christian is no Melchizedek, then, without father or mother; he +comes into life in a community of life, and usually, moreover, through +the personal touch of some other individual life. It is the one primal +law, of life through life. + +2. _In Fellowship within the Kingdom._--And not only in coming into +the kingdom, but also within the religious fellowship of the kingdom, +we are emphatically members one of another. In bringing us into that +love which is God's own life, God evidently has no intention of +allowing us to cut ourselves off from our brethren, to climb up to +heaven by some little individual ladder of our own. That humility or +open-mindedness, which constitutes the first beatitude and the initial +step into the kingdom, and that self-sacrificing love, which +constitutes the last beatitude and the crown of the Christian life, +are both possible and cultivable only in personal relations to others. +No man ever got them alone. And, for this very reason, in the +discussion of the religious life, we found the New Testament guarding +most carefully against all over-estimation of marvelous experiences as +such. For these tended to make a man feel that he had such an +individual ladder of his own to heaven, and had no need, consequently, +of his brethren; and so led him into the very reverse of the +fundamental Christian qualities--into unteachableness instead of +humility and open-mindedness, and into censoriousness instead of love. +That objective attitude which is essential in all character and work +and happiness, cannot be unimportant in our specifically religious +life. + +Even in this most individual relation to God, then, men's outlook is +varied and but partial. We need to share, and can share, one another's +visions. The meaning of the many-sidedness of even a great human +personality gets home to us only so--through the various impressions +gained by different men. Much more can God be revealed to us, even +approximately, only so. The great and surpassing value of the New +Testament lies exactly herein, that it gives the varied impressions +upon the first Christian generation of God's supreme revelation--the +most important individual reflections of Christ. The New Testament +comes to stand, thus, in no merely external and mechanically +authoritative relation to the life and faith of the church, but in the +most interior and vital relation. And Bible study gets a new +significance for us, as we see it, as at one and the same time our +chief way to our own vision of God's actual, concrete self-revelation, +and our deliverance from our merely subjective dreaming. We come to +share in some living way the vision of these others who have seen most +directly and most largely. + +3. _In Intercessory Prayer._--One particular application to our +religious life, of this conviction of the social consciousness of our +mutual influence, seems worthy of mention--its bearing upon +intercessory prayer. Few other things in religion, one may suspect, +seem less real to modern men. Can we ground the matter a little more +deeply for ourselves, and give it reality, by showing its close +connection with this deep-rooted conviction of the social +consciousness? + +We have already seen,[90] if character and love are to be realities to +us, if the world is to be a real training-ground for moral character, +and not a mere play-world--a nursery continually set to rights from +without, that we must all be most closely knit together; that our +choices must have effects in the lives of others; that we must be +bound up in one bundle of life. And we do affect one another's lives +in a thousand ways. In manifold directions we condition the happiness +and temptations of one another. The unspoken mood of another, an +expression of countenance, a tone, an emphasis, may affect our whole +day. + +Now, if the spiritual world is real at all, it is to be counted upon. +Apparently, there is such a thing, for example, as a spiritual +atmosphere in an audience--not, it may well be supposed, a magical +matter, but really determined by the tone of the minds composing the +audience. The actual mood of the hearers and of the speaker makes a +difference. Results, great and important, are so changed often quite +unconsciously. It may well be that God is the medium in all this. The +attitude of the auditors is like unconscious, silent praying to +God--the praying of their life, of their spirit. + +But, whether one cares to look at this special case in such a way or +not, we are, in any event, in our spiritual lives in the deepest way +members one of another. Our spiritual condition inevitably affects +others. We cannot sow to the flesh and reap life anywhere, in +ourselves or in others. This is particularly true, of course, of those +to whom we are bound in the closest life relations. That this is +absolutely true in normal personal relations, when we are in the +presence of our friends, all of us fully believe. The question simply +is, May this law of mutual influence hold of those bound up with our +lives even when they are distant from us or estranged? In giving the +privilege of intercessory prayer, it may well be believed, God simply +allows us to be, even then, what we are always so fully under other +circumstances--an influence upon them, a condition of the good and +growth of others. _He simply allows the regular law of the spiritual +and moral world to hold without exception._ We are still, though +distant or estranged, members one of another. It would be a very +human, defective, faulty God, who could not put us thus in touch with +our loved ones everywhere. But this is possible through _him_, and +therefore in prayer, and under strictly ethical and spiritual +conditions, and not as a matter of mere whimsical and wilful will on +our part, and it opens no door to magical superstition. Is not the +recognition of the place and value of intercessory prayer, then, an +only just extension of the prime conviction of the social +consciousness? + + +V. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN CONFESSIONS OF FAITH + +Theology has, once more, in the third place, to recognize the +importance of mutual influence for good in confession of faith, in +creeds. When, to-day, we seek the common grounds of belief for +Christian thinkers, so far as the social consciousness really moves +us, we approach the problem in a way somewhat different from that of +previous generations. We do not now seek to elaborate a second, modern +Westminster confession; nor do we seek a mere average of Christian +ideas that in reality expresses no one's whole living thought. Still +less is there sought the barest minimum of Christian belief. Rather, +in harmony with the social consciousness, we seek a unity that is +organic. Our age, therefore, must recognize that, in the confession of +its faith as in all else, we are genuinely members one of another. The +unity sought not only tolerates differences, but welcomes and +justifies them, as themselves helps to a deeper unity. It believes in +equality, but not in identity. + +It is true that Christianity looks everywhere to life; and we may be +sure that any statement of Christian doctrine that does not obviously +bear on living is still inadequate and incorrect. It is true that we +do well to emphasize the strictly religious and practical purpose of +the Bible; that the Bible is interested in both nature and history so +far and only so far as either reveals God and inspires to godly +living. It is true that in all Christian thinking Christ is our +ultimate appeal. + +But, on the other hand, we must not confuse the issue. We cannot +expect agreement in detailed intellectual statements even with fullest +loyalty to Christ, and the most earnest desire after truth. To each +his own message. Nor can we confine, nor is it desirable to confine, +expressions of Christian faith to the merely practical side. We need +to seek to _understand_ the meaning of our Christian experience, not +only for the sake of our intellectual peace, but also for the sake of +deepening our Christian experience itself. Now, it is here contended +that in our confessions of Christian faith we need one another, and +that complete uniformity of belief and statement is both impossible +and undesirable. + +1. _Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Impossible._--It is +impossible, for, in the first place, it is difficult, in any case, to +tell our real inner creed. Some of its most important articles are +quite certain to be implicit and unconfessed, even to ourselves. The +only important creed, in the case of the individual, is that which +finds its expression in life. There are assumptions implied in deeds +and spirit; and the spirit of a man throws more light on his real +creed than his formal statements do. His doctrines may be radical, his +spirit thoroughly constructive, or _vice versa_. If all thought tends +to pass into act, as modern psychology insists, we have a right to +urge that those articles of a man's creed which find expression in +living, are for him the really important articles. The will has a +creed, as well as the intellect, and the real creed is the creed of +life rather than of lips; it is wrought out, rather than thought out. +And this real, inner, living creed probably no man can state with +accuracy even in his own case. And if he is ever able even +approximately to do so, it will be at the end, rather than at the +beginning, of his life's work and experience. + +Moreover, complete uniformity of belief and statement is impossible, +for, even exactly the same words cannot mean the same to different +individuals, for they are interpreted out of a different experience; +they cannot mean precisely the same thing, even to the same +individual, at different times, for his interpreting experience, too, +is a changing thing. We need sometimes to remind ourselves that there +is never any literal transfer of thought from mind to mind, still less +from statement to mind; all thinking of even the most passive kind has +an element of creation in it, for terms must be interpreted, and the +interpretation is inevitably limited by previous experience. +Sabatier[91] is quite right, therefore, in asserting that credal +statements must change their meaning just as words change. But it is +to be noted that this principle means not only that unalterable +doctrine, in this sense, is impossible between the generations; but +also that identical doctrine is impossible in the same generation. + +Out of the different experiences, too, grow the different points of +view and the different emphases. And these different points of view, +and the different distribution of emphasis, give the same creed very +different meanings for different men. It is as impossible to avoid +this, as it is to avoid change and individuality. It is true of a +man's creed as of his environment, that the only effective portions +are those to which he attends--those which he emphasizes, not those to +which he gives a bare assent; and this varying attention and emphasis +cannot be the same in different individuals. The only logical outcome +of a thorough-going attempt to reach an identical creed is the church +of one member. + +2. _Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Undesirable._--But +complete uniformity of belief and statement is not only impossible; it +is undesirable. For, in the first place, it is only by these differing +but supplementary finite expressions that we can approximate to the +infinite truth. Like Leibnitz's mirrors in the market-place, it is +only by combining the points of view of all that a complete +representation is possible. We need one another here, as elsewhere; we +need the fellowship of the church, and of the whole church; the +strictly individual view must be fragmentary. Our message needs the +supplement of the messages of others; through each member God has +something unique to say. They without us, we without them, are not to +be made perfect. We need to share, in such measure as is possible, the +experiences of others; but this is possible only through vital +contact. + +Moreover, we are not to forget how truth comes--not by surrender of +convictions, not by the silence of each, but by each standing +earnestly for the truth which is given to him, in a union of +conviction and charity. For only he who has convictions can be +tolerant, as only he who has fears can be courageous. + +Once more, we cannot and must not simply repeat each other. Nothing is +so fatal to spiritual life as dishonesty. To attempt an identical +creed involves something of such untrue repetition of the experience +of others. For, as Herrmann has said, doctrines are an expression of +life _already present_, and are of value only so; they are not +themselves a condition of life. If the doctrines we profess are not +the honest expression of a real life in us, they are a hindrance, not +a help. "Conscious untruth tends to drive from Christ." + +For every one of these reasons, now, it is positively undesirable to +forbid varying theories or to check the varied expressions of +Christian faith, whether in accordance or not with certain standard +formulas. A growing life requires a growing expression, which must be +justified by its history, not dogmatically by reference to some +supposed fixed standard of doctrine in the past. The very meaning and +health of Christian fellowship demand that we should welcome and +encourage the honest expression of the varied manifestations of the +One Spirit, that we may be the more certain to get the whole truth, +the whole life which God intends. We are members one of another, in +doctrine as in life. + +It becomes increasingly clear, thus, where the real Christian unity +is, and where the common grounds of Christian belief must be sought. +The real unity of Christians is in their common life, in the common +experience, in the possession of the common personal self-revelation +of God in Christ, in the inworking of the One Spirit. It is the +meaning of this one central Christian experience, which we strive to +express in our doctrinal statements. Our _expressions_ must vary; the +life, the personal relation to God, is one. The best analogy we have +of the case lies in what the same great friend means to different +persons. Our creeds are at best poor and partial expressions of the +meaning for us of the divine friendship, of God's self-revelation to +us. It is, then, precisely in our Christian experience and in that +personal relation to God revealed in Christ which makes a man a +Christian at all, that all the common grounds of Christian belief lie. + +The solution of Christian unity here, that is, is not by increasing +abstraction, but by frank concreteness; not by false simplicity, but +by living fullness; not by relation to propositions, but by relation +to facts; not by emphasis on natural religion, but by emphasis on +historical religion; not by bringing nature into prominence, but human +nature; not by relation to things, but by relation to persons, to the +one great world fact, the one person, to Christ. "I am the Way." The +Christian faith is faith in a person; the Christian confession of +faith is confession of Christ. And if we are really in earnest with +this word Christian, we already have our basis of unity in our +personal relation to Christ, our common Lord. But that personal +relation to God in Christ is always more than a credal statement _can_ +express, though we may never cease to attempt such expression; and for +the sake of the larger realization, by ourselves and by the church, of +the meaning of the personal relation to Christ, we must welcome every +honest expression of his Christian life by another. Altogether, we +shall at best but dimly shadow forth its full meaning. + +And such a concrete relation to the personal Christ is a far better +test of genuine Christian faith than any creed, whether more or less +elaborate, since in the personal relation character inevitably comes +out; and any test that allows even for the moment the ignoring of the +ethical, cannot remain even intellectually adequate, for Christian +doctrine looks always and certainly to life. Even if one is thinking +_only_ of the correct intellectual expression of the common Christian +life--the maintenance of orthodoxy, so far as that is possible to +us--it should be remembered that the most conservative of all +influences is love of a person, and, by no means, subscription to a +set of propositions. Would Christ so think? Would he so speak?--these +are questions far more certain to keep Christian _thinking_ true, than +any intellectual test of man's devising. + +We do not expect, therefore, we do not seek, any common grounds of +belief for Christian thinkers, other than are involved in the simple +fact that we are Christians at all, in the common recognition of the +revelation of God in Christ--of the Lordship of Christ. We confess +Christ. For, "no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit." +And "other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, which +is Jesus Christ." + +Now, in this common confession, it is here especially maintained, we +are, as everywhere, "members one of another" and need one another; and +the unity we seek, therefore, is not the unity of identical credal +statement--which can only make us isolated atoms not necessary to one +another--but the deeper and larger organic unity of the richly varying +manifestations of the common life in Christ. We may come, through the +witness of another, to an appreciation of Christ which is really our +own, but to which we should not have come if the other had not spoken. +Men do mutually influence one another for good, in their confessions +of Christian faith. + + +VI. THE CONSEQUENT IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH + +In this recognition of the vital and essential importance of mutual +influence in the attainment of character, in the individual relation +to God, and in creed, theology is brought to a new sense of the +significance of the doctrine of the church. On the one hand, it cannot +derive its importance from having to do with an unalterably fixed and +infallibly organized external authority; and, on the other hand, it +can be no longer an unimportant addendum concerned only with methods +of organization and government, and with ecclesiastical ordinances and +procedure. So far as the social consciousness has influence upon +theology at this point, theology must see that the doctrine of the +church is the doctrine of that priceless, living, personal fellowship, +in which alone Christian character, Christian faith, and Christian +confession can arise and can continue. The doctrine of the church +becomes thus the doctrine of the very life and growth of Christianity +in the world. It is the doctrine of the real kingdom of God, Christ's +own great central theme. + +[78] Cf. above, pp. 35 ff. + +[79] _The Elements of Sociology_, pp. 119, 120, 121. + +[80] _The Ideal Life_, p. 149. + +[81] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 455. + +[82] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 579. + +[83] Cf. Hebrews 10:10. + +[84] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 335. + +[85] _Op. cit._, p. 459. + +[86] Cf. Romans 8:26-39. + +[87] II Corinthians 5:19. + +[88] _The Theology of the New Testament_, Vol. II, p. 448. + +[89] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 61; cf. p. 87. + +[90] Cf. above, p. 32. + +[91] _The Vitality of Christian Dogmas and their Power of Evolution._ + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF +THE PERSON UPON THEOLOGY_ + + +In the discussion of the influence of the social consciousness upon +theological doctrine, we turn now to ask concerning the third element +of the social consciousness, How does the deepening sense of the value +and sacredness of the person affect theology? + +And with this sense of the value and sacredness of the person, we may +well include, so far as the influence upon theology is concerned, the +remaining elements of the social consciousness--the deepening sense of +obligation, and of love. For, as we have already seen, the sense of +obligation and of love follow so inevitably from a deep sense of the +value and sacredness of the person, that it would be a needless +refinement, probably, to try to analyze out their separate influence +upon theological thinking. We should find them all leading us to +essentially the same great emphases. + +When, now, through the social consciousness, the personal has become +the supreme value for us, and regard for it our eternal motive and +goal, we cannot fail to demand that theology give a real personality +to God and man--a consciousness marked, in Professor Howison's +language, with "that recognition and reverence of the personal +initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the test of +the true person."[92] + + +I. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN MAN + +In the first place, the social sense of the value and sacredness of +the person will emphasize the full personality of man. + +1. _Man's Personal Separateness from God._--The sense of the value of +the person cannot admit for a moment such a one-sided emphasis upon a +universal cosmic evolution, or upon the immanence of God, as should +make impossible a true personality in man. It seeks, in its view of +both God and man, a really "_personal_ idealism." It does not forget, +but earnestly asserts, the dependence of all other spirits upon God; +and, consequently, looks for no metaphysical separateness in this +sense from God. But a genuine recognition of the personality of man +does require that man be conceived as separate from God in just this +sense: (1) that he has a clear self-consciousness of his own, and (2) +that he has real moral initiative, which makes his volition truly his +own. These two factors constitute all of separateness that need be +demanded for man. Possessing these, he is "outside of God" in the only +sense in which a "personal idealism" feels concerned to assert +separateness. But for these factors it is concerned; for without them, +it believes, no truly ideal view, no moral world, no religious life, +are possible. + +2. _Emphasis Upon Man's Moral Initiative._--In particular, the +application of the sense of the value and sacredness of the person in +theology, means the emphatic recognition of the moral initiative of +man--of the possession of a real will of his own. The whole social +consciousness, especially in this third element of it, rests upon the +assumption that man has worth, as a being capable of character as well +as of happiness, and so deserves in some worthy sense to be called a +child of God. If the social consciousness is, as we have seen, with +any fairness to be called the recognition of the fully personal,[93] +this reverence for the personal initiative of men cannot be lacking in +it. Its influence upon theology at this point, therefore, is hardly to +be doubted. + +And theology itself is vitally concerned. For the whole possibility of +the conceptions of government and providence requires this. These +terms are words without meaning, having absolutely no place in +theology or philosophy, if man has no moral initiative. Nor should it +escape our notice, that we strike at the very root of all possible +reverence for God, if we deny a real initiative to man. We have no +possible philosophic explanation of either sin or error, consistent +with any real reverence for God, if a true human will is denied.[94] +In Professor Bowne's vigorous language: In a system of necessity +"every thought, belief, conviction, whether truth or superstition, +arises with equal necessity with every other.... On this plane of +necessary effect the actual is all, and the ideal distinctions of true +and false have as little meaning as they would have on the plane of +mechanical forces.... The only escape from the overthrow of reason +involved in the fact of error lies in the assumption of freedom." +Moreover, if real human initiative is denied to men, we conceive God +as having really less respect for persons in his dealing with them, +than the most elementary ethics requires of men in their relations to +one another. A one-sided doctrine of immanence, thus, degrades both +man and God. It degrades man, in denying to him a true personality, +and so making him simply a thing. It degrades God, in making him the +real responsible cause of all sin and error, and in making him treat +possible persons as things. The influence of the social consciousness, +which leads us to measure the moral growth of a man and of a +civilization by the deepening sense of reverence for the person, is +fairly decisive at this point. It _must_ see in God the most absolute +guarding of man's personality, and especially of his moral initiative. + +3. _Man, a Child of God._--The Christian faith, that man is a child of +God, is a faithful expression of the insistence of the social +consciousness upon the recognition of the full personality of man. It +expresses both man's entire dependence upon God for his being and +maintenance, and at the same time his infinite value and sacredness as +a spirit made in the image of God, capable of indefinite progress, and +capable of personal relation to God. It voices thus Christianity's +characteristic "humbly-proud" conception of man--humble in view of the +eternal and infinite plans of God; proud, as "called to an +imperishable work in the world." It is, indeed, but a concrete +statement of that faith in love at the heart of things, and in the +all-embracing plan of a faithful God, which we found required, if the +social consciousness itself was to have any justification.[95] + + +II. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN CHRIST + +In the second place, under this impulse of the sense of the value and +sacredness of the person, theology is likely to insist on the +recognition of the personal in the conception of Christ. + +1. _Christ a Personal Revelation of God._--This recognition of the +personal in Christ will mean, first, that we are to conceive Christ as +a _personal_ revelation of God, rather than as containing in himself a +divine substance.[96] It cannot forget, that if God is a person, and +men are persons, the adequate self-revelation of God to men can be +made only in a truly personal life; and that men need above all, in +their relation to God, some manifestation of his ethical will, and +this can be shown only in the character of a person. A merely +metaphysical conception of the divinity of Christ in terms of +substance or essence, as these are commonly thought, must, therefore, +wholly fail to satisfy. We must be able to recognize and bow before +the personal will of the personal God revealed in Christ, if we are +really to find God through him. A strong sense of the personal, then, +such as the social consciousness evinces, must see in Christ, above +all, a personal revelation of a person. + +2. _Emphasizing the Moral and Spiritual in Asserting the Supremacy of +Christ._--This implies that the dominant sense of the value and +sacredness of the person will certainly tend to bring into prominence +the moral and spiritual in asserting the supremacy of Christ, rather +than the metaphysical or the simply miraculous. So far as these latter +come into its representation at all, they will follow rather than +precede, and be accepted because of the moral and spiritual, or as +simply working hypotheses enabling us to bring into a thought-unity +what we have to recognize in the moral and spiritual realm. If one +faces the matter fully and frankly, is it not plain that Christians of +all shades of belief are increasingly finding the real reason for +their faith in Christ in his moral and spiritual supremacy? Many may +choose to _express_ their faith in him, when once reached, in terms of +the miraculous or metaphysical; but the miraculous and the +metaphysical are not the primary _reasons_ for their faith. It is the +inner spirit of Christ himself which really masters us and calls out +our confident faith and our eager submission. And it is only when we +have already gotten this sense of the stupendousness of his +personality, that the so-called miraculous in his life becomes to our +thought natural and fitting, and we are driven to think him standing +in some unique relation to God and so requiring to be conceived in +unique metaphysical terms. + +It is easy, no doubt, to indulge in a false polemic against the +miraculous and metaphysical. One of the surest bits of autobiography +we have from Christ, the narrative of the temptations, implies, as +Sanday has acutely pointed out,[97] the clear consciousness on the +part of Christ of the possession of what we call supernatural powers. +It is a far less simple problem to rid the gospels of the miraculous +element, than our age, with its greatly exaggerated estimate of the +mathematico-mechanical view of the world, is likely to think. The +so-called miraculous in connection with Christ is not to be +impatiently and dogmatically set aside.[98] So, too, the demand of +thought, that we form finally some metaphysical conception of the +great personality which we meet in Christ cannot be denied as wholly +illegitimate. All this is to be freely granted and asserted. + +But it is of the greatest importance for Christian thought, that it +still keep Christ's own absolute subordination of both the miraculous +and metaphysical to the moral and the spiritual. The same narrative of +the temptation, that so clearly implies supernatural powers in Christ, +has its whole point in Christ's answering determination absolutely to +subordinate these supernatural powers to moral and spiritual ends. His +whole ministry evinces the greatest pains upon this point. And he +evidently thinks a theory of his metaphysical relation to God (as +ordinarily conceived) of so little vital importance that even such +slight hints as we get of it in the New Testament apparently do not +come from him at all. The present tendency, therefore, naturally +demanded by the social consciousness, to emphasize the moral and +spiritual in Christ in asserting his supremacy, is quite in harmony +with Christ's own insistence. He will be followed for what he is in +himself. + +The real supremacy of Christ, his truest divinity, we may be sure, +comes out for our time in those statements which we are able to make +concerning his inner spirit. Here, and here only, the real power of +his personality gets hold upon us. What are these grounds of the +supremacy of Christ? How is it that we come to God through him? + +3. _The Moral and Spiritual Grounds of the Supremacy of +Christ._[99]--(1) In the first place, _Jesus Christ is the greatest in +the greatest sphere_, that of the moral and spiritual; and this, by +common consent of all men. Both the depth and the consensus of +conviction concerning Christ are profoundly significant. If our earth +has ever seen one of whom it could be truly said, He is a moral and +spiritual authority, preeminently the one great authority in this +greatest sphere,--that person is Jesus Christ. Seeing the moral +problem more broadly than any other ever saw it, tracing the motives +of life more deeply than any other ever traced them, applying those +principles of the life which he sees with a tact and delicacy and +skill that no other ever approached, speaking with an authority in +this moral and spiritual sphere to which no other can for a moment lay +claim,--this man is easily the greatest in the greatest sphere. + +It is, perhaps, to say only the same thing in a little different way, +when one says with Fairbairn, that Christ is transcendent among +founders of religion, "and to be transcendent here is to be +transcendent everywhere, for religion is the supreme factor in the +organizing and the regulating of our personal and collective +life."[100] The present age is, more than any other, the age of the +scientific study of religion. The last forty years, indeed, have seen +such attention to the study of comparative religion as the world never +saw before. What has been the outcome of that study? To make the +relative position of Jesus among the founders of religion lower? I do +not so understand it. No, the outcome is such that it is a manifestly +inadequate statement to say, that he is transcendent among the +founders of religion. The very most that we may hope to say about the +founder of any other religion is, that in some single particular at a +long distance he can be brought into comparison with Jesus. But let +one think for a moment what it means for a man to be a founder of +religion. We talk of leadership. Do we know what a founder of religion +does? He makes the light, in which millions of men look upon all the +events of their life, in which they see the past of the world's +history, in which they look forward to the entire future. The very +mood and atmosphere of men's lives are determined by these founders of +religion; and among these preeminent leaders, Jesus, beyond all +mistake, is transcendent. + +Let the nature of his kingdom, too, be his witness. He calmly aims to +found a kingdom that shall be spiritual, universal, eternal. One must +face the fact that this man of Nazareth in Syrian Galilee, purposes in +coolness of deliberation to found a kingdom that shall be absolutely +spiritual, that shall make no appeal to any of the lower elements of +man; one must see that this man, in those temptations through which he +passed concerning the form of his work, deliberately set aside the +kingdom by bread, the kingdom by marvel and ecstasy, and the kingdom +by force, and purposed to found a kingdom solely upon moral and +spiritual forces. And observe that he confidently expects this kingdom +to be universal--appealing to men of all races and of all times, and +to be eternal--still standing when all else shall have passed away. +And upon his belief in this character of his kingdom he stakes his +life, and calmly gives to himself as the goal of his life the +establishment of just such a kingdom; and remains to the end confident +of his success. The mere vitality of will in such a purpose is hard to +take in, and alone may well give us pause. + +And because he is the greatest in the greatest sphere, transcendent +among founders of religion, the founder of a kingdom spiritual, +universal, and eternal, he becomes for us a "personalized conscience," +a spiritual, moral authority for us even beyond our own conscience--an +authority that grows upon us with our growth, and submission to which +is earth's highest moral test. + +(2) And there must be added to this first proposition, that Jesus is +the greatest in the greatest sphere, a second: _He alone is the +sinless and impenitent one._ And it is to be noticed that it is this +man who sees more clearly than any other the moral and spiritual, who +knows, as no other does, what character is and what moral life +means,--it is he, who claims to be the sinless one. No other ever +intelligently made this claim; for no other was it ever intelligently +made. The words of the great historian Ranke seem to us to be simple +truth when he says: "More guiltless and more powerful, more exalted +and more holy has naught ever been on earth than his conduct, his +life, and his death. The human race knows nothing that could be +brought even afar off into comparison with it." Only such an one could +intelligently make for himself the claim of sinlessness. And for no +other was this claim of sinlessness ever intelligently made. Men know +each other too well to make it for others when moral consciousness has +fully awakened. But he fights his battle in the wilderness, and there +is no record of failure so far as he himself can see it, and none that +disciple ever ascribed. + +And this claim of sinlessness for Christ is to be urged, not so much +because of any special statements by Christ as because of that +remarkable fact to which Dr. Bushnell has called attention,--his +impenitence. Jesus alone among all good men is a man of "impenitent +piety;" and by this he is marked off absolutely from every other good +man. What happens in the life of any other good man is this: that, as +he goes forward, the sense of sin grows upon him, the ideal rises +before him and he feels increasingly that his own life is inferior to +it. Of Jesus this is not true. He shows no sign of consciousness of +failure. There is no evidence that he feels that he has fallen short +in any degree. He is absolutely without that universal characteristic +of all other good men, absolutely without penitence. Contrast him for +a moment with the man, who perhaps all would agree was the greatest of +all his disciples, the man to whose devotion there seems to be no +limit--the Apostle Paul; and notice, that years after his persecution +of the church and of the cause of Jesus, with growing sense of what +Jesus is, and of his own inexhaustible debt to him, there comes over +him with increasing, not lessening, power the sense of his sin, and he +writes to the Ephesians, "Unto me, who am less than the least of all +saints, was this grace given me that I might preach unto the Gentiles +the unsearchable riches of Christ;" and in one of the very last +letters that comes down to us from him, says again, "Faithful is the +saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the +world to save sinners; of whom I am chief." What evidence have we that +Christ ever felt in the slightest degree such penitence? + +(3) But more than this is true. _With the highest ideal, Jesus not +only does not consciously fall short of it, but consciously rises up +to it_, and, as Herrmann says, "compels us to admit that he does rise +to it." It were very much that a man with any ideal, however inferior, +should be able to say to himself, I have not fallen short of this +ideal; but that one, who sees more clearly than any other in the realm +of the moral and spiritual, and who has an ideal of simply absolute +love and of unbounded trust in God,--that he should show not only no +consciousness of falling short, but should consciously rise to his +ideal and compel us to admit that he rises to it: this is a fact +unparalleled in the history of the world. It is far more than mere +sinlessness; there is here a positiveness of moral achievement so +great--a fact so tremendous--that we seem able but feebly to take it +in. + +(4) And even that is not all. _Jesus has such a character that we can +transfer it feature by feature to God_, not only with no sense of +blasphemy, not only with no sense of his coming short, but with +complete satisfaction. I do not now ask at all as to any man's +metaphysical theory about Jesus Christ; I only ask that it be noticed +that those who question common theories altogether still get their +ideal of God from Jesus Christ; and that this is the wonderful thing +that has happened on our earth: that there has once lived a man--daily +moving about among men, a concrete circumstantial account of whose +life in many particulars we have--the features of whose character one +can transfer absolutely to God and say, That is what I mean by God. +One simply cannot add anything to the character of God himself in the +highest moments of his imagination, that is not already revealed in +Jesus Christ. I take it that the words of Fairbairn are literally +true: he was "the first being who had realized for men the idea of the +Divine." When, therefore, Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the +Father and it sufficeth us," he could only reply as he might any day +to us, "Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me, +Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." + +(5) And one cannot stop here. _Jesus is consciously able to redeem all +men._ With such sense of the meaning of sin and of moral conduct as no +other ever had, understanding, therefore, the sin and need of men as +no other ever did, and having such a vision of what it is perfectly to +share the life of God as no other ever had, still, facing the masses +of men, he could say to himself, "I am able to take these men and lift +them into the very presence of God and present them spotless before +the throne of his glory." Have we taken in what it means, that, in the +consciousness of a man in form like ourselves, there could be, even +for a moment, the actual belief that he was the one that was to take +away the sin of the world, and had power to redeem men absolutely unto +God? In another's words: "Jesus knows no more sacred task than to +point men to his own person." He is himself God's greatest gift, +himself "the way, the truth, the life,"--not only fighting his own +battles, but consciously able to redeem all men. + +(6) This simply implies, as Dr. Denison has suggested, that _Jesus has +such God-consciousness and such sense of mission as would simply +topple any other brain that the world has ever known into insanity_, +but which simply keeps him sweet, normal, rational, living the most +wholesome and simple and noble life the world has ever seen. How are +we to explain that fact? On the one hand, the sense of being of even a +little importance in the kingdom of God proves singularly intoxicating +to men. How often, when one is strongly possessed by the idea that he +is a special channel of manifestation for God, do moral sanity, +influence, and character all suffer! On the other hand, there is no +burden of suffering that men can bear so great as suffering in the sin +of one loved--thus bearing the sin of another. But here is one who can +believe that, when men come to him and simply see him as he is, they +catch their best vision of God; here is one who bears consciously the +sin of all men, and who can believe that he has absolute power to +revolutionize the lives of other men and make them what they were +meant originally to be, children of God; and yet, believing this, can, +under that consciousness, keep sweet and normal, wholesome and simple, +energetically ethical and thoroughly rational,--can keep sane. Indeed, +he lives a life so sane, that, to pass even from some of our best +religious books into the simple atmosphere of the story of his life +often seems like passing from the super-heated, artificially lighted, +heavily perfumed and exhausted atmosphere of the crowded drawing-room +into the open fresh air of day under the heaven of God. In the very +act of the most stupendous self-assertion, Jesus can still +characterize himself as "meek and lowly of heart," and we feel no +self-contradiction--so completely has he harmonized for even our +unconscious feeling his transcendent self-consciousness and his humble +simplicity of life. Has the world anywhere a phenomenon comparable to +this? + +(7) In consequence of all this, _Jesus is in fact the only person in +the history of the race who can call out absolute trust_. As little +children, we knew something of what it meant to have complete trust. +There were a few years when it seemed to us that there was nothing in +either power or character that was not true of our fathers and +mothers. We soon lost such trust, even as children. Is there any way +back to the childlike spirit? Let us ponder these golden words of +Herrmann: "The childlike spirit can only arise within us when our +experience is the same as a child's; in other words, when we meet with +a personal life which compels us to trust it without reserve. Only the +person of Jesus can arouse such trust in a man who has awakened to +moral self-consciousness. If such a man surrenders himself to anything +or any one else, he throws away not only his trust, but himself." +There has been one life lived on earth, in whose hands one may put +himself with absolute confidence and have no fear as to the result. +Jesus, and Jesus alone, can call out absolute trust. + +(8) Moreover, _Jesus is the only life ever lived among men in whom God +certainly finds us, and in whom we certainly find God_. And, once +again, I am not now asking whether one is able to come to any theory +of the nature of Christ. That is a matter of comparative indifference. +The great fact is this: That there has been lived among us men such a +life that, if a man will simply put himself in the presence of it and +stay there, he will have brought home to him with unmistakable +conviction the fact that God is, and is touching him and that he is +touching God; that, coupled with such a sense as he never had before +of his sin, there will be also the sense of forgiveness and +reconciliation with God, and so, such evidence of the contact of God +with his life as he can find nowhere else. So Harnack believes: "When +God and everything that is sacred threaten to disappear in the +darkness, or our doom is pronounced; when the mighty forces of +inexorable nature seem to overwhelm us, and the bounds of good and +evil to dissolve; when, weak and weary, we despair of finding God at +all in this dismal world,--it is then that the personality of Christ +may save us." + +(9) And all this means, finally, that _Jesus is for us the ideal +realized_. Let not the commonplaceness of the words rob us of their +meaning. The fact is far enough from the commonplace. Philosophy must +always tell us that we have no right to expect anywhere a realized +ideal, except in the absolute whole of things. Certainly, we never +find in any of the inferior spheres a fully realized ideal. What does +it mean, then, that in this highest of all spheres, the sphere of the +moral and spiritual life, we have the ideal realized; that our very +highest vision is a fact? What is there that one would add to, what, +that one would take away from, the life of Christ, that it might be +more completely than it is the ideal realized? + + "But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time, + But Thee, O poet's Poet, wisdom's tongue, + But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, + O perfect life in perfect labor writ, + O all men's Comrade, Servant, King or Priest,-- + What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, + What least defect or shadow of defect, + What rumor, tattled by an enemy, + Of inference loose, what lack of grace + Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, + Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, + Jesus, good Paragon, thou crystal Christ?" + +4. _Christ's Double Uniqueness._--It seems hardly possible to do +justice to the facts now passed in review, without recognizing, at +least, that they point to a double uniqueness on the part of Christ in +his relation to God, reflected in his own language concerning himself +and in the spontaneous confessions of his disciples in all times. He +alone, in the emphatic sense, is _the_ Son. The contrasts between +Christ and other men, which the simple facts of the life and +consciousness of Christ have compelled us to make, naturally, then, +demand recognition from thought. The recognition of the facts _is_ the +vital matter, but thought can hardly see them unmoved. How are we to +_think_ of Christ? With clear remembrance, now, that Christian +teaching itself insists upon the kinship of God and men; that absolute +barriers, therefore, cannot anywhere be set up; that a revelation +unrelated to all else could be no revelation; and that Christ himself +often pointed out the likeness between his own life and work and those +of his disciples;--still we may not ignore actual differences, and +must honestly strive to do justice to them in our own conception of +Christ. One may not forget that there is much here that we can hardly +hope ever to fathom; and that into this secret of Christ's relation to +the Father theology has often tried to press with a precision of +statement that was quite beyond its possible knowledge, and that +damaged rather than helped the religious consciousness; but one may +try to think in simple, straightforward fashion what the facts mean. +Now these actual and momentous moral and spiritual differences already +pointed out seem, at least, to assert, I say, a genuine double +uniqueness in Christ. Christ's relation to God is absolutely unique, +that is, in two senses: in the absolutely unique purpose of God +concerning him; in the absolutely perfect response of Christ to that +purpose. If one chooses to use the language, he may say, that the +first uniqueness is metaphysical; the second, ethical.[101] + +First, then, God has a purpose concerning Christ, that he has +concerning no other, for he purposes to make in him his supreme +self-manifestation. This sets him apart from all others. His +transcendent sense of God and sense of mission only correspond to the +absolute uniqueness of this eternal purpose of God concerning him. We +are utterly unable to see that they could be borne by any being that +we know as man. He is the manifested God--"the visible presentation of +the invisible God." This cannot be said, in the same sense, of any +other. Now, our only adequate statement of the inner reality--the +essential meaning--of any being, can be given only in terms of the +purpose which God calls that being to fulfil. To see, then, that God's +purpose concerning Christ is absolutely unique, and that God's purpose +is, to make in Christ the completest possible personal manifestation +of himself, is to see that Christ's essential relation to the Father +is absolutely his own, unshared by any other. And, it may be added, +there is no reason why this purpose of God concerning Christ should +not be regarded as an eternal purpose, eternally realized. + +But Christ is as clearly unique in his simply perfect response to this +purpose of God. Our facts seem to point directly to the conclusion, +that in him there was no moral hindrance to the fullness of the +revelation God would make through him. His life is perfectly +transparent, allowing the full glory of the character of God to shine +through it. The harmony of his will with God's will is complete. If it +be said that this last uniqueness is, after all, only difference in +degree from other men, it must be answered, first, that degree here is +so vast as to be practically kind. This is the perfect of Christ set +over against the varyingly imperfect of all other men. Moreover, to +ask here for difference in kind in any other sense, is probably to +make an unintelligent and impossible demand; for, in the nature of the +case, the relations involved are spiritual and personal, and there +cannot be, in strictness, in the fulfilment of such relations any real +differences in kind. + +5. _The Increasing Sense of Our Kinship with Christ, and of His +Reality._--Side by side with this recognition of the nature of +Christ's uniqueness, there deserves to be set, as another outcome of +the emphasis upon conceiving Christ as a personal revelation of God, +the increasing sense of our kinship with Christ and of his reality. +The connection here is by no means accidental, though it may seem +almost paradoxical. We have plainly come in our day to our clearest +recognition of the divinity of Christ through the sense of his +transcendent character. But revelation in character requires the +reality of his human life. The very route, therefore, by which we have +most certainly reached our sense of Christ's divinity, leads also to +an increasing sense of kinship with Christ, and so of his reality. So +long as we seemed driven to conceive the divinity of Christ in terms +that had no relation and no meaning for human life, just so long must +he seem to us to be really moving in another world and to take on the +unreality of that other world quite hidden from us. But now Christ's +life has meaning; we can enter into it and feel that it is real. With +all its transcendence, the life does not move now simply in the sphere +of the mysterious. It is no unreal drama, no play-struggle,--utterly +failing to meet our real moral and spiritual needs. Least of all, in +this supreme work for man, can the revealing life be only a show. It +feels real. It is real. And, with clear sense of the inevitable +inadequacy of the analogy, we still rest confidently in the conviction +that God's relation to Christ may be best conceived after the analogy +of the relation of the Spirit of God to our spirits; and that, when we +try to press beyond that, we are attempting to rise into that sphere +of a supposed supra-personal, for which we have no possible organ of +vision, and where, therefore, we are thinking not more, but less, +truly.[102] + +With this sense of the reality of the personal, spiritual life of +Christ, there naturally comes home to us the appropriateness and +_practicability of his ideals_. They are seen to belong to us more +surely, and properly to make demands upon us. It is, probably, not too +much to say that, under the influence of the social consciousness, +there has been a definite, growing approach to Christ's way of +thinking, and to his ideal of life. This means a consciousness +increasingly Christian in tone, and, therefore, in turn, increasingly +better able to interpret the teaching and life of Christ, and so to +give promise of a more Christian theology. None of us, probably, are +fully conscious of the more subtle inconsistencies of even our best +theological thinking, when measured by a completely Christian spirit. +At least, with the insistence upon Christ as a personal revealer of a +personal God, it must become more true that the meaning of all terms +for the work of Christ shall be more clearly reasonable, more +consistently ethical, and more completely spiritual; and then the +immediate rooting of Christian theology in the Christian religion can +be seen and felt. + + +III. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN GOD + +The sense of the value and sacredness of the person must lead to the +special recognition of the personal not only in man and in Christ, but +also in God. We have already seen reasons for believing that the +social consciousness is peculiarly bound strongly to emphasize the +personality of God, as in the end absolutely essential to its own +justification. The social consciousness represents an ethical movement +that can live only in the atmosphere of the personal. + +1. _The Steady Carrying through of the Completely Personal in the +Conception of God. Guarding the Conception._--This pressure of the +social consciousness toward an imperative faith in the fully personal +God is most valuable, as offsetting the tendency in many quarters +toward a scientific or even idealistic pantheism or monism that is +quite impersonal. "For," in the language of Professor Howison, "the +very quality of personality is, that a person is a being who +recognizes others as having a reality as unquestionable as his own, +and who thus sees himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to +other persons in an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties and +rights, himself endowed with dignity, and acknowledging the dignity of +all the rest."[103] As this is preeminently the spirit of the social +consciousness, it is plain that we have in the social consciousness an +increasingly powerful motive for guarding the full personality of God. + +It needs particularly to be noted, that we know no _definite_ +"supra-personal." Pantheism or any impersonal monism is forced, +therefore, when it leaves the personal conception of God, to take a +lower line of development, not a higher. The result is, that it is +obliged to deny the highest attributes to God, and then, as Browning +is fond of arguing, man steps at once into the place of God. Men +cannot permanently remain satisfied with a philosophical view, of +which that is the logical outcome. Certainly, such a view can get no +support from the social consciousness, with its deep conviction of the +supreme value and sacredness of the person. + +Moreover, it is not to be forgotten, in estimating the value of a +cosmic monism, that what the cosmological really means, ethically and +religiously, to a people, must always depend upon their social ideals. +The natural in itself contains no command. For any effective vital +interpretation, therefore, even of its impersonal Absolute, pantheism +is constantly thrown back upon the personal. + +Only a clear, steady carrying through by theology of the completely +personal in its conception of God can ultimately satisfy this sense of +the value and sacredness of the person. Professor Nash does not speak +too strongly when he says: "To fulfil her function the church must +develop the doctrine of a Divine Personality. She has not always been +true to it in the past. Too often, by her sacraments, by her theology, +by her theory of inspiration, she has glorified the impersonal."[104] + +Now, such an attempt, it is perhaps worth saying once more, is not to +be thought of as a running away from a thorough-going metaphysical +investigation. It rather takes the ground, indicated in the earlier +discussion, of what may be called, in Professor Howison's language, +personal idealism; and holds that spirit, person, _is_ for us the +ultimate metaphysical fact: the one reality to which we have immediate +access; the reality from which all our metaphysical notions are +originally derived; and, in consequence, the one reality which we can +take as the key to the understanding of all else. And it believes that +even essence and substance, the great words of the old metaphysics, +can be really understood only as they are interpreted in personal +terms. Ultimately, theology would hold, this would mean the +interpretation of the essence of things in terms of the purpose of God +concerning them--what he meant them to be. + +In the attempt, then, clearly and steadily to carry through the +conception of God as completely personal, theology may well guard +carefully certain points. In the first place, theology does not mean +to transfer to God human limitations; rather, it conceives him to be +the only complete personality with perfect self-consciousness and full +freedom, no part of whose being is in any degree foreign to himself. +Nor, in the second place, does it mean to forget that the personal +relations in which God stands to other persons are unique, and that, +in three definite respects: that conviction of the love of God, as of +no other, must underlie, as a great necessary assumption, all our +thinking and all our living; that God is himself the source of the +moral constitution of man, which must thus be regarded as an +expression of the personal will of God, and the personal relation to +God so have universal moral implications such as no other personal +relation can have; and in that God is such in his universal love for +all, that it is impossible to come into right personal relation to +God, and not at the same time come into right relation to all moral +beings.[105] + +2. _God is Always the Completely Personal God._--If, now, theology is +to do justice to the demands of the social consciousness for a full +recognition of the personal in God, it must see clearly that God is +_always_ the completely personal God. Certain conclusions, not always +admitted, are believed to follow from this position. + +(1) _The Consequent Relation of God to "Eternal Truths."_--In the +first place, there can be no sphere of eternal truths, thought of as +either created outright by the will of God, or as existing of +themselves independently of God and only to be recognized by him. + +The difficulty is not merely that at least one of these views would +put God in the same dependent relation to truth as we finite beings, +and thus practically put a God above God. Nor is the difficulty merely +that it is impossible to think the real existence of such a sphere of +eternal truth, since truths or laws can be said to exist only in one +of two ways: either as the actual mode of action of reality, or as the +perception and formulation in an observing mind of that mode of +action. And these difficulties are both sufficiently serious. + +But, from our present point of view, the great difficulty is, that +trying to conceive God as either creating or coming to the recognition +of truth, assumes, as Lotze points out, a _fragmentary_ God, a God for +whom truth is _not yet_. It assumes an action of the will of God apart +from his reason, that is, a God not yet completely personal, not yet +the full God of truth and character. A God for whom truth and duty are +not yet, is certainly no true person. Most, if not all, of our +metaphysical puzzles connected with the relation of God to what we +call eternal truths, seem to me to grow out of this thought of an +essentially fragmentary God. + +We are driven, consequently, to a denial of both the Scotist and +Thomist positions, as ordinarily conceived. It is true neither that +the truth is true and the good is good because God wills it, nor yet +that God wills the true because it is true and the good because it is +good. Both views alike assume the possibility of a fragmentary God, a +God for whom at some time truth and goodness were not yet. But God has +_always_ been the completely personal God of truth and love, never a +bare will and never a bare intellect. Hence, neither as an independent +object to be recognized, nor yet as the external product of his will, +can we think of the realm of eternal truth and goodness. We must +rather say, God alone is the eternal being and absolute source of all, +always complete in the perfection of his personality; and, therefore, +what we call the eternal truths are only _the eternal modes of God's +actual activity_. This alone seems to the writer to give a +thorough-going theistic view, free from self-contradiction.[106] + +(2) _Eternal Creation._--But, further, if God is to be thought as +_always_ the completely personal God, we are led, also, immediately to +the doctrine of eternal creation. + +If God has had always a completely personal life, his entire being +must have been always in exercise. Can we really think of such a God +as simply quiescent, and not as always active? Is not his activity +involved in his complete personality? The thought of his possible +quiescence arises probably out of an unconscious, but nevertheless +unwarranted, transfer to God of our finite separation of will and act. +But God is here, too, no fragmentary God; he has always been the +completely personal God, always acting. + +A second consideration carries us to the same conclusion. Theologians +have felt that they have made a distinct step in advance in tracing +creation to love in God, as, for example, Principal Fairbairn does. +But this gives no real help as an explanation of creation as +_beginning in time_; for one must at once ask, Was not the love of God +eternal, and if this were the real reason leading to creation, must +not, then, creation be eternal? + +So far as I am able to see, there is nothing to lose and much to gain +in clearness and satisfactoriness of thought in a frank acceptance of +the doctrine of eternal creation. Not, of course, in the sense of an +eternal dualism, in the sense of the thought of an eternity of matter +set over against God, but in the clear sense of the eternal creative +activity of God. And to such a doctrine of eternal creation, the +social consciousness, in its emphasis on the completely personal, +seems to me to lead. + +(3) _The Unity and Unchangeableness of God._--And, once more, if God +is always the completely personal God, we shall conceive his own unity +not as monotonous self-identity, but only as consistency of meaning. +We shall not, therefore, transfer to God, pluming ourselves meanwhile +upon a highly philosophical view, the mechanical unchangeableness of a +rock; but we shall be rather concerned with the consistency of his +character and the unchangeableness of his loving will, which would be +the very reasons for his changing, adapting attitude toward his +changing children. From this point of view, too, the sphere of law and +the sphere of the actual, will seem to us, necessarily, to root in the +sphere of the ideal; the _is_ and the _must_, to rest in the _ought_; +though we may not hope to trace the connections in detail. In a God, +then, who is a completely harmonious person, never acting in +fragmentary fashion, whose will and whose reason and whose love are +never at cross purposes--only in such a God can the world find its +adequate and unifying source. The world itself has real unity only in +so far as it is the expression of the consistency of meaning of the +purpose of God concerning it. + +And this same thought of the consistency of the meaning of the purpose +of God, I have elsewhere argued,[107] saves us from the necessity of a +self-contradictory conception of the miraculous or supernatural, by +its recognition of the dominant spiritual order. It also enables us to +see, with Professor Nash, if the word personal is given sufficient +breadth, that "the true supernatural is the personal, and wheresoever +the personal is discovered, whether in the life of conscience or the +life of reason, whether in Israel or Greece, there the supernatural is +discovered. Upon this conception of the supernatural as the personal, +apologetics must found the claims of Christianity. The divine and the +human personality stand within 'Nature,' that is, within the total of +being. But they both, the human as well as the divine, transcend the +scope and reach of visible Nature."[108] + +(4) _The Limitations of the Conception of Immanence._--Indeed, it +ought to be clearly recognized on all sides by those who believe in +religion at all, that we cannot so exclusively emphasize the immanence +of God, as many are now doing, and have a God at all, beyond the +finite manifestations. When the matter is so conceived, there is no +real personal God with whom there can be any personal communion. +Religion, thus, in any ordinary sense of it, is by this process made +simply impossible; Positivism is the only logical result, and Frederic +Harrison becomes the one sole, clear-sighted prophet among us, a lone +voice crying in the wilderness. Such an outcome is possible for any, +because, and in so far as, they are not true to the social +consciousness in its demand for the completely personal God, who, in +Martineau's language, is a genuinely "free spirit."[109] + +3. _Deepening the Thought of the Fatherhood of God._--But the +influence of the social consciousness in its deepening sense of the +value and sacredness of the person, of obligation and of love, not +only tends to insist upon the completely personal in the conception of +God, but also tends to deepen our thought of the Fatherhood of God. + +(1) _History no Mere Natural Process._--No mere on-going of an +unfeeling Absolute, whatever name be given it, will ever satisfy the +social consciousness. The new sense of the sorrow and ethical meaning +of the historical process demands, in the first place, that history +shall not be regarded as a mere necessitated development, but a +movement in which men effectively cooeperate, never more consciously +and clearly than to-day; and secondly, it demands a _God_ who cares, +who loves, who guides. History cannot be a mere holocaust to God. + +(2) _God, the Great Servant._--Rather, as we saw in the fourth +chapter, the social consciousness requires a God whose purpose shall +completely support its own purpose, and so requires us, with +Fairbairn, to put Fatherhood before Sovereignty, not Sovereignty +before Fatherhood, and requires us definitely to conceive God after +Christ, as self-giving ministering love. It is one of the anomalies of +Christian history, that the church has been so slow to cast off a +pagan conception of God, and to come to a truly Christian view. We can +hardly take in Christ's own revelation of God without some sharing in +his sympathy for men. Some experience of our own is needed to unlock +the revelation. And, so, the steady deepening of the social +consciousness, both as to the value of the person and as to the sense +of obligation, has certainly helped us to see that if God is to be +highest, he must be love, and thus the great servant, with +transcendent obligations, entering really and sympathetically into all +our life. + +(3) _No Divine Arbitrariness._--With such a conception of God, every +trace of arbitrariness disappears. Calvinism, however strenuously +insisted upon, means a far different thing for any man who really +feels the pressure of the modern social consciousness, who has come to +some real sense of the value and sacredness of the person, that is, +who really sees God in Christ. The great truth of Calvinism, that God +is the ultimate source of all, was perhaps never more secure than +to-day; but that God, who is the absolute and ultimate source of all, +is the fully personal God, whose will is never divorced from his +reason and love, who knows no such abstraction as a bare and empty +omnipotence without content or direction, but who is himself always +living love. The bane of much so-called Calvinism is in this +supposition of a fragmentary God, like a motion without direction or +rate of speed. Arbitrary decrees are conceivable only from such a +fragmentary God, not yet full and complete in his reality and +personality. + +(4) _The Passibility of God._--It would seem, also, that any vital +defense of the Fatherhood of God, required by the social +consciousness, involves further the frank admission of the passibility +of God, whether it has the look of an ancient heresy or not. We must +unhesitatingly admit that, without which God can be no real God to us. +"Theology has no falser idea than that of the impassibility of God. If +he is capable of sorrow, he is capable of suffering, and were he +without the capacity for either he would be without any feeling of the +evil of sin or the misery of man. The very truth that comes by Jesus +Christ may be said to be summed up in the passibility of God."[110] +With the growing sensitiveness of the social consciousness, the +problem of suffering and of sin presses increasingly, and itself +almost compels the assertion of the passibility of God. Nothing less +can satisfy our hearts, nor indeed allow us to keep our reverence for +God. + +Certainly, with the increasingly clear vision, which the social +consciousness is giving us, of sympathetic, unselfish, definitely +self-sacrificing, loving leadership even among men, we shall not rest +satisfied with less in God. We must have a suffering, seeking, loving +God; because our Father, suffering in our sin, bearing as a burden the +sin of each, and not satisfied while one child turns away; no mere +on-looker, but in all our afflictions, himself afflicted. The cross of +Christ, then, is only an honest showing of the actual facts of God's +seeking, suffering love. + +4. _As to the Doctrine of a Social Trinity._--One inference for +theology widely drawn from the social consciousness, it ought in +fairness, perhaps, to be said, seems to me unjustified,--the doctrine +of a so-called "Social Trinity." One must question the constant cool +assumption made in these discussions of a social Trinity, that this +view is the only alternative to what is called an "abstract +simplicity." In any case, one would suppose, we must have in God all +the richness and complexity of a complete personal life, freed from +the limitations of finite personality. Something of the much that that +involves we have been trying to point out. Here certainly is no +"abstract simplicity." + +Moreover, the conception of a social Trinity, so far as the writer can +see, carries us inevitably to a tritheism of the most unmistakable +kind. "Social" involves full personality. Nothing requires more +complete personality than love, which the view affirms to exist +between the persons of the immanent Trinity, between the distinctions +in the very Godhead. The relations of Christ to God were, of course, +distinctly and definitely personal; but it must not be forgotten that +we are not permitted, on any careful theological view, to transfer +these directly to the immanent relations of the Godhead. + +The distinction drawn by Dr. W. N. Clarke,[111] between the doctrine +of the biblical Trinity and the doctrine of the Triunity, I count of +decided value; but after one has made the distinction, one may doubt +the value of the contribution made by the doctrine of the Triunity. +The really immanent relations of the Godhead are necessarily hidden +from us, and are, also, so far as the writer can see, without ethical +or religious significance for us, except in the way of possible injury +through substituting some supposed altogether mysterious and +incomprehensibly sacred, for the well-known and truly sacred shown in +the ethical relations of common life. + +The doctrine of the Triunity seems to have been originally intended to +enable the church to hold the divinity of Christ. If we now get at +that and hold that from quite a different point of view, the older way +becomes less essential. We must, indeed, keep the ancient treasure, +but we need not keep it in the same ancient chest. None of us--not the +most orthodox--really find the _reasons_ for holding the divinity of +Christ in the doctrine of the Triunity. It is interesting to observe +how widely separated from the doctrine of the Triunity are the +considerations which really move men to faith in the divinity of +Christ. That doctrine is, at the very most, only our philosophical +supplement intended to bring that, which on other grounds we have come +to believe, into unity with our thought of God. + +But, at least, we must so conceive the divinity of Christ, as not to +get two or three Gods. And a "Social Trinity" does not seem to me to +avoid that, except in terms. However, therefore, we are to solve our +problem, we are not to take _that_ way out. + +What Dr. Clarke calls the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, on the +other hand, seems to me to contain the very heart of Christianity, +whatever philosophical theory we put beneath it; and it became, +therefore, as expressed in the baptismal and benediction formulas, the +great daily confession of the church, since it strongly expresses that +of which we have been speaking,--the living love of God, a life of +absolutely self-giving love, of eternal ministry. + +The biblical Trinity is, in truth, what it has sometimes been called, +the trinity of redemption; and, for me, directly emphasizes the great +facts of redemption. Here there are three great facts: First, the +Fatherhood of God, that God is in his very being Father, Love, +self-manifesting as light, self-giving as life, self-communicating, +pouring himself out into the life of his children, wishing to share +his highest life with them, every one. Second, the concrete, +unmistakable revelation of the Father in Christ, revealed in full +ethical perfection, as an actual fact to be known and experienced; no +longer an unknown, hidden, or only partially and imperfectly revealed +God, but a real, living God of character, counting as a real, +appreciable, but fully spiritual fact in the real world. And, third, +the Father revealing himself by his Spirit in every _individual_ heart +that opens itself to him, in a constant, intimate, divine association, +which yet is never obtrusive, but reverent of the man's personality, +making possible to every man the ideal conditions of the richest life. + +What metaphysical theory we put under that confession of our full +Christian faith, does not seem to me to be of prime importance. Men +may count it of great importance; but it can hardly be of first +importance, since, at the very most, only the beginnings of such a +theory can be found in the great New Testament confession of Christ. + +5. _Preeminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing all God's +Relations with Men._--But the very heart of the conviction, on the +part of the social consciousness, of the value and sacredness of the +person, is its _reverence for personality_; and this thought has much +significance for theology, for, if this judgment of the social +consciousness is justified, it must be regarded as preeminently +characterizing God in all his relations with men. + +(1) _Reflected in Christ._--When, in the first place, we turn to +Christ as the supreme revelation of God, we cannot fail to see that +this reverence for the personal marks every step he takes. It begins, +of course, in the priceless value which Christ gives to each person, +as a child of the living, loving Father. + +And it seems to determine his _whole method_ with his generation and +with his disciples. It is shown in the initial battle in the +temptations, as to the form his work was to take, and as to the means +to be employed. There was here, as we have seen, from the start an +absolute subordination of all unspiritual and unethical methods in the +building of the kingdom. There is to be no over-riding of the free +personality anywhere. He faced successively the temptations to place +his dependence on the mere meeting of men's material needs--the +kingdom by bread; the temptation to place his dependence on that which +appealed most strongly to the oriental mind--the use of wonder-working +power--the kingdom by marvel or ecstasy; the temptation to place his +dependence on force--the kingdom by force. But Christ sees clearly +that God is no mere supplier of bread; that God is no mere +wonder-worker, no mere giver of wonderful experiences; and that God is +not a tyrant to conquer by force. Everywhere, therefore, he sets aside +whatever may override the free personality. He would replace all the +attractive and seemingly rapid methods of the kingdom by bread, the +kingdom by marvel, and the kingdom by force, with the slow and tedious +and costly but reverent method of the spiritual kingdom by spiritual +means, the kingdom of God by God's way--of a trust freely won, a +humility spontaneously arising, a love gladly given. He can take no +pleasure in any kingdom but one of free persons. + +In the same way, in his dealings with the inner circle of his +disciples, there seems to have been the most scrupulous regard for +their own needed initiative. He apparently makes no clear announcement +of himself as Messiah even to the disciples until late in his public +ministry, and, then, only after they have been brought, through weeks, +if not months, of unusually close personal contact and impression of +his spirit, into their own confession of him. He steadily abjures, +that is, all dogmatism about himself, and leads them along by a purely +spiritual method to a confession of him, that may be truly their own. +There is no piling up of proof-texts from the Old Testament, to show +that he is the Messiah. He seems never to have attempted any proof +with his disciples. Indeed, he seems purposely to have chosen the +rather ambiguous title, "the Son of Man," that men might be left free +to come by moral choice to him. + +The surpassingly significant fact, that Christ's chief work in the +establishment of the kingdom of God, as seems to me beyond doubt, was +his personal association with a few men; that, probably, a full third, +perhaps more, of his very brief so-called public ministry was taken up +with a period of definitely sought comparative retirement with the +inner circle of the disciples--all this points to the same recognition +of the fundamental importance in Christ's eyes of such a reverence for +the person. The kingdom of God can be founded only by the full winning +of free persons into his discipleship. The kingdom is first and last a +kingdom of free persons, in Dr. Mulford's language, always a "Republic +of God." Professor Peabody's emphasis on the essential importance of +Christ's individualism, that "Jesus approaches life from within, +through the inspiration of the individual,"[112] it need not be said, +goes upon the same assumption of Christ's reverence for the person. + +In his really public ministry the same spirit appears; for Jesus seems +to me here constantly to be standing with a kind of moral shudder +between the spirit of contempt in the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the +outraged personality of the common people, even of the publicans and +sinners. He feels the contempt even for these least, as a blow in his +own face. + +That glimpse which the Revelation gives us of Christ standing and +knocking at the heart's closed door, is a true picture forevermore not +only of the attitude of Christ's earthly life, but of God's eternal +relation to us. Men may over-ride and outrage us, and even think that +they show the more love thereby; God, never. This principle, then, we +may take as absolutely crucial, in our judgment of God's dealings with +us. + +(2) _In Creation._--It is fundamental even in creation. The very fact +of the creation of persons implies it. Such a creation can have no +significance, if, in the language already quoted from Howison, God's +"consciousness is void of that recognition and reverence of the +personal initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the +test of the true person." + +And if love is, for a moment, to be thought of as the motive of +creation, it required for any satisfaction of it, persons who could +freely respond to that love. + +The definite bestowal of the fateful gift of moral freedom, with the +practical certainty of sin--the creation of beings who could choose +against him--shows how deeply planted in the very being of God is this +principle of reverence for the person. + +Here, too, the impossibility of arbitrary divine decrees meets us. +This would be treating a person as a thing, and God himself may not do +that and remain God. If a man cannot see his way to a faith both in +the divine foreknowledge and in the moral initiative of men, +therefore, he must not hesitate to choose even the divine nescience of +the free acts of men, rather than think of God as compelling men. Our +whole moral universe tumbles about our ears, if he who is the source +of all is not in earnest with persons. And yet there is much +theological thinking, of which the common notions of a personal reign +of Christ on the earth may be taken as an example, that practically +looks to a kingdom by compulsion. A kingdom of free spirits cannot be +merely decreed. + +(3) _In Providence._--And this same principle of reverence for +personality must be felt to be the guiding motive and key, as well, in +the providence and government of God. God keeps his hands off. He must +so act as to call out, not to suppress, individual initiative. + +This is, perhaps, the deepest reason for a sphere of law, that there +may be a realm in which a person can have his own free development, +uninterfered with by any moral compulsion. + +If, now, this sphere of law is to be any true training ground for +character, as we saw in the third chapter, results must not be +forthwith set aside, the mutual influence of men must hold all along +the line. + +Even in the case of great evils, God does not step in at once to set +things right. Character is an exceedingly costly product. This is no +play-world, either as to mutual influence or as to freedom. God guards +most jealously the freedom and personality of men. He never forgets +that character must be from within. He will not accept, as Christ +would not, a faith compelled by "signs." Hence, too, we are left to +_ask_, and much is left to depend on our asking. So, also, God does +not remove all difficulties and give sight in place of faith. He seems +even careless, often, of how things go; for he would not only appeal +to the heroic in us, but he wishes to make it impossible for us to +confuse prudence and virtue in ourselves or others, and so to give us +the opportunity and the joy of a real moral victory, of knowing that +we have made a genuinely unselfish surrender to the right. + +In the light of this deep-lying principle of God's sacred reverence +for the person, one learns to hush his former complaints, and with +full heart to thank God that he lives in a world where righteousness +and happiness do not always seem to fall together, and where, +therefore, he can "serve God for naught." Oh, let us know, that it is +not that God does not care, but that he cares so much--too much to +sacrifice to present comfort the character of the child he loves--too +much to shut him out from his highest opportunity. + +(4) _In Our Personal Religious Life._--And the same principle holds in +our personal religious life. The unobtrusiveness of God's relation to +us, of which we often complain, is rather to be taken as evidence of +his sacred respect for our own moral initiative, and proof of his +careful adaptation to our moral need. Wherever a strong personality is +in relation to a weaker, the stronger must maintain a conscientious +self-restraint, lest he dominate the personality of the other, to the +other's moral injury and to the hindering of his individuality. It +_is_ possible for a boy to be injuriously "tied to his mother's +apron-strings." Much more is it necessary that God's relation to us +should not be obtrusive. God must guard our freedom and our +individuality. He must even take pains to hide his hand, as a strong, +influential, but wise friend would do. As we go higher, our life is +and must be increasingly one of faith, the Father's relation less and +less obtrusive.[113] The times of vision are given to make us patient +in our progress toward the goal. And after the vision comes often what +Rendel Harris calls "the dark night of faith, when every step has to +be taken in absolute dependence upon God and assurance that the vision +was truth and was no lie."[114] We need the invisible God for +character. + +It is for this reason, no doubt, that God makes so rare use of +overwhelming experiences in the religious life. He would be chosen +with clear and rational self-consciousness, and so he rarely +overpowers. And even in experiences which seem most overpowering, if +the person is really awake to their true ethical and spiritual import, +they will probably be found delicately adapted to call out the +individual's own response. But for most of us such experiences prove a +real temptation, because we allow the passively emotional to absorb +our attention, and so lose the ethical and spiritual fruit. Where +these marvelous experiences have been most marked, and have plainly +given real help, they seem still, usually, to have been needed because +of some false conception of God and the spiritual world that required +a powerful corrective. Here they seem really to have been granted, as +probably the transfiguration of Christ was to the disciples, as a +concession to men's weakness, God consenting reluctantly to use for +the time a lower line of appeal, because men are unable to rise to the +higher appeal. + +We have already seen the danger of the neo-platonic over-estimation of +emotional experience, and of sudden and magical crises in religion; +and this danger is especially seen in much that is said concerning the +work of the Holy Spirit. It seems as if it were simply true, for many +earnest and sincere Christians, that the superstitions, which they had +conscientiously put aside elsewhere in religion, all came back in +their thought of the work of the Spirit. Here their relation to God +has ceased to be thought of as a personal or moral or truly spiritual +one; and they are looking more or less definitely for bodily thrills, +for marked and overwhelming emotional experiences, or for sudden +transformations--hardly to be called transformations of character--in +the passive half-magical removal of temptations altogether. That is, +they are looking for moral and spiritual results from unmoral and +unspiritual processes. The exact point is this: Doubtless we are not +narrowly to limit what the personal influence of the personal Spirit +of God may do in transforming human life--the possibilities probably +far transcend what we think--but we are clearly to see that the +relation is personal, that the influence is spiritual and under +strictly ethical conditions, if we are to escape from simply pagan +superstition. Let us see that, if God is a Personal Spirit and not an +impersonal substance, then, as Herrmann says, he "communes with us +through manifestations of his inner life, and when he consciously and +purposely makes us feel what his mind is, then we feel himself."[115] + +And, then, let us add, as has been already earlier said, that the +deepening life in the Spirit becomes plainly a deepening personal +friendship and communion with God, with laws--those of a growing +friendship--that we may study and know and obey; and among these laws, +none is of more central importance than this of the reverence for the +person. + +(5) _In the Judgment._--And when we turn to God's relation to us in +the judgment, we can be sure, I think, of a further application of +this principle, contrary to common teaching and expectation. We have +no reason to look forward to a time when the secrets of all, or of +any, hearts shall be laid bare to all. In so doing, God would violate, +it seems to me, the principle of his entire dealing with men, and give +the lie to his own revelation in Christ and in history. For myself, +Dr. Clarke's words carry immediate conviction: "No man needs to know +the secrets of his neighbor, and be able to trace the justice of God +through his neighbor's life, and no man who respects the sacredness of +individuality will desire it. Neither revelation of his own secrets +nor knowledge of another's seems a good thing to a self-respecting +soul."[116] + +Even the judgment itself proceeds, no doubt, in clear recognition of +the free personality. We are "judged by the law of liberty." And we +really choose our own destiny, as Phillips Brooks suggests in one of +his most striking paragraphs. "By this law we shall be judged. How +simple and sublime it makes the judgment day! We stand before the +great white throne and wait our verdict. We watch the closed lips of +the Eternal Judge, and our hearts stand still until those lips shall +open and pronounce our fate, heaven or hell. The lips do not open. The +Judge just lifts his hand and raises from each soul before him every +law of constraint whose pressure has been its education. He lifts the +laws of constraint, and their results are manifest. The real intrinsic +nature of each soul leaps to the surface. Each soul's law of liberty +becomes supreme. And each soul, without one word of commendation or +approval, by its own inner tendency, seeks its own place.... The +freeing of souls is the judging of souls. A liberated nature dictates +its own destiny. Could there be a more solemn judgment seat? Is it not +a fearful thing to be judged by the law of liberty?"[117] + +And we may be most certain, that, in any judgment by God, there can be +no thought of "human waste." The man must remain for God, to the end, +a child of God, a person of sacredness and value, to be dealt with +always as capable of character. And it is along just this line that, +independently of exegetical grounds, it seems to me, we are led to a +decisive rejection of the doctrine of annihilation. And I know no more +convincing putting of the matter than this brief but comprehensive +statement of Fairbairn: "If there is any truth in the Fatherhood, +would not annihilation be even more a punishment of God than of man? +The annihilated creature would indeed be gone forever--good and evil, +shame and misery, penalty and pain, would for him all be ended with +his being; but it would not be so with God--out of his memory the name +of the man could never perish, and it would be, as it were, the +eternal symbol of a soul he had made only to find that with it he +could do nothing better than destroy it."[118] + +(6) _In the Future Life._--Doubtless our difficulties are not at an +end even so; but, at least, our conception of God is saved from +self-contradiction; and the Father is seen as suffering in the sin of +the son, and perpetually desiring and seeking his return, never +satisfied so long as any child of his still refuses his place in the +Father's love. This deep-going principle of reverence for personality, +with which we are dealing, is the finest flower of human ethical +development, and seems completely to shut out the possibility of +compulsion by God at any time in the future life. A person will never +be treated as a thing. The soul that turns to God must be won +voluntarily. + +And if, then, the abstract possibility of endless resistance to God by +men cannot be denied; so neither can the possibility--perhaps one +might even say, the practical probability--be denied that God, in his +infinite love and patience and wisdom, may finally win them all out of +their resistance. And the eternal hope is at least open; but it is +open, it should be noted, only upon the fulfilment by men of precisely +those moral conditions which hold now in the earthly life, and which +ought now to be obeyed. There will never be an easier way to God. It +is shallow thinking that supposes that, if there be any possibility of +turning to God in the future life, it is of small moment that one +should now put himself where he ought to be. The full results of all +our evil sowing, we must receive. The utmost that on any rational +theory, then, can be held out to men, is the hope that, facing a +greater heritage of evil than now they face, they might return to God +under the same condition of absolute moral surrender, which now holds, +and the fulfilment of which is now far more easily possible to them. + +And it ought not to be overlooked that, even if the principle of +reverence for personality be much less far-reaching than is here +affirmed, the annihilation of a soul by God could seem justified only +upon the assumption that God foresaw the entire future, and knew that +the soul would never turn to righteousness and God. But if the +doctrine of annihilation is to be justified on _that_ ground, it is to +be observed, that the same foreknowledge would have enabled God to +know before creation all the finally incorrigible, if there were to be +any such, and so he need not have called these into being at all. A +goal, therefore, as great if not far greater, than that offered by the +annihilation theory would be, thus, attainable simply upon the same +assumption that must rationally be made by that theory, and, at the +same time, the great objection to that theory--its violation of +personality--would be avoided. + +It seems probable that this very principle of reverence for +personality contains the chief reason why more has not been revealed +to us concerning the future life. Christianity is very far from +satisfying our curiosity here. It gives little more than the +absolutely needed assurance of the fact and worth of the life beyond. +Details are either quite lacking, or given only in broadest symbols. +This reticent silence of revelation seems needed if our individual +initiative is not to be hindered, either by excess of motive on the +one hand, or by the depression of an unappreciated ideal on the other +hand. + +On the one hand, that is, so far as we could understand a detailed +revelation of the future life, to set it forth with the realism of the +present life would be to interfere with that unobtrusive relation of +God to us, which we have seen to be so necessary to our highest moral +training. We need, in this time of our training, a certain obscurity +of spiritual truth; we need to walk by faith, not by sight. To be able +so obviously to weigh the eternal realities against the temporal, +would hinder rather than help our growth in loyal, unselfish +character. + +On the other hand, if a complete and indubitable revelation of the +future life were given us, no doubt there would be much that could +make but small appeal to us, and might even prove positively +depressing, because we have not yet the experience which would +interpret to us its meaning and open to us its joy. Our earthly life +may furnish us an analogy. The joy of a grown man is often +preeminently in his work, but he would find it difficult to explain to +a child the source of his joy. And if the child were told that there +would come a time in a few years when his chief joy would be found in +work, the prospect would probably not seem to him inviting. The wisest +of us may be as little prepared to enter in detail into the meaning of +the future life. + +We may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value +beyond that which we can now understand; and we may be assured that at +least what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the +richest life,[119] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the +future life. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great +centers of the life beyond must be association and work; though we may +not know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both +may deepen beyond our present conception. Steadily deepening personal +relations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to God in +Christ, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with +joy, because it is God's work. This, at least, the future life will +contain. We can hardly go farther with assurance. + +But perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the +proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and +still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to God. That +God has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance, +the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only +another application of this same principle of reverence for the +person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great +joy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung +suggestively calls "an apocalypse of Kipling." In Kipling's poem to +Wolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees "the discovery of a religion, +or assignable and eternally rewardable relation to God, in those whose +inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." Their spiritual +life "serves God with the joy which comes of following and satisfying, +in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "It +is the religion of work and of daring." And "it is only in the open +vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was +unconsciously serving God all along, begins to come to the perception +of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an +obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our +Father's praise.'" + +It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into God's +own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's +divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize +the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door +of hope, where God has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant +the divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike. +"Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he +standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath +power to make him stand."[120] + +[92] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. x. + +[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106. + +[94] See especially Bowne, _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. +239, 377, 378; James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 145 ff. + +[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff + +[96] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 241 ff. + +[97] Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol. II, p. 626. + +[98] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chaps. VI and VII. + +[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the +propositions briefly summarized in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, +p. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book, +because they fit so closely into the argument here. + +[100] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 378. + +[101] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249. + +[102] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 209; and below, p. 209. + +[103] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7. + +[104] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270. + +[105] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 205 ff. + +[106] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff. + +[107] See _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chapter VI. + +[108] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270. + +[109] See the fuller statement in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, +pp. 96-108. + +[110] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 483. + +[111] _Outline of Christian Theology_, pp. 161, ff. + +[112] _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 101. + +[113] Cf. Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, pp. +434, 435. + +[114] _Union with God_, p. 109. + +[115] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 143. + +[116] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 464. + +[117] _The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermons_, p. 197. + +[118] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 467. + +[119] See above, pp. 68 ff. + +[120] Romans 14:4. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abbott, Lyman, reference to, 131. + + _American Journal of Theology, The_, reference to, 86. + + Analogy of Organism. See Organism. + + Annihilation, doctrine of, why rejected, 239 ff. + + Arbitrariness, excluded in God, 220 ff. + + Aristotle, quoted, 26; + his position abandoned by mysticism, 56. + + Association, personal, in redemption, 149 ff; + in personal relation to God, 159 ff; + in confessions of faith, 167 ff. + + Assumption of the book, 3. + + Atonement, in the light of social consciousness, 147 ff, 150 ff; + the cost of, 150; + substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff; + analogy of father and child in, 154 ff; + blood covenant applied to, 157. + + + Baldwin, J. M., reference to, 12. + + Biblical Trinity, 224, 225. + + Blood covenant, as applied to doctrine of atonement, 157. + + Boehme, Jacob, referred to, 71. + + Bowne, B. P., on causality and purpose, 43; + on freedom, 182, 183. + + Bradley, F. H., on the religious feeling in philosophy, 129. + + Brooks, Phillips, reference to, 28, 146; + on the intellectual life of Jesus, 81; + on the emotional life of Jesus, 84; + on the universal interest of Jesus, 124; + on the likeness of men, 126; + on judgment according to the law of liberty, 238. + + Bruce's _The Kingdom of God_, reference to, 52. + + Bushnell, H., on impenitence of Jesus, 193. + + + Calvinism, 220. + + Causality and purpose, 42, 43. + + Christ, See Jesus. + + Christian, the historically, emphasized by the social consciousness, + 102 ff. + + Christianity, as contributing to sense of mutual influences, 13; + sometimes unconscious, 130. + + Church, the, importance of the doctrine of, 177 ff. + + Clarke, W. N., referred to, 116, 224; + quoted, 132, 133, 152; + on propitiation, 151; + on doctrine of Trinity and Triunity, 223; + on revelation of inner life at judgment, 237. + + Common qualities and interests, most valuable, 177 ff. + + Confessions of faith, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff; + uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff; + and undesirable, 171 ff. + + Corinthians, first, twelfth chapter of, as expression of analogy of + organism, 23; + against false mysticism, 60-61, 83. + + Cornill, reference to, 64. + + Creation, eternal, 214 ff; + reverence for person in, 230 ff. + + Creed, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff; + uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff; + and undesirable, 171 ff. + + + Denison, J. H., referred to, 197. + + Devotional literature, difficulty in, 84; + referred to, 141. + + Dewey, John, referred to, 12. + + Drummond, H., reference to, 21; + on sin, 140. + + Du Bois, Patterson, on true spirit of fatherhood, 110. + + Edwards, Jonathan, referred to, 22. + + Election, in Paul, 116; + a choice for service, 116. + + Emotion, extreme emphasis on, a danger in mysticism, 71; + cf. 135 ff. + + Eternal creation, 214 ff. + + "Eternal truths," God's relation to, 212 ff. + + Ethical, the, in religion, 86 ff; + proofs that religion must be, 89 ff. + + Ethicizing of religion, 89 ff; + involved in relation to Christ, 89; + the divine will in ethical command, 90; + involved in nature of God's gifts, 91; + communion with God through harmony with his will, 92; + the vision of God for the pure in heart, 92; + sharing the life of God, 93; + Christ, as satisfying our claims on life, 94; + attraction to Christ, ethically conditioned, 96; + the moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98. + + Ethics and religion, 87, 89 ff. + + Everett, C. C, criticism of Nietzsche, 120. + + _Expository Times, The_, reference to, 64. + + + Fairbairn, A. M., his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, + mentioned, 110; + on the Christian consciousness, 112; + referred to, 119, 196, 215, 234; + on sense of sin, 143; + on Christ as transcendent, 189; + on passibility of God, 221; + on annihilation, 239. + + Faith, necessity of, in life, 43, 44. + + Faith in men, increased by sense of likeness, 128. + + Father and child, the analogy of, applied to redemption, 154 ff. + + Favorites, none with God, 116 ff. + + Fellowship, Christian, help of, in coming into kingdom, 159 ff; + within the kingdom, 162 ff; + in intercessory prayer, 164 ff; + in confessions of faith, 167 ff. + + Fiske, John, reference to, 21. + + Freedom, in man, 181 ff; + Bowne on, 182, 183; + references on, 182. + + Fremantle, W. H., reference to, 141. + + Friendship, laws of, as holding in religion, 67. + + Future life; + moral reality of, 132 ff; + reverence for person in, 240 ff. + + + Galatians, Epistle to, referred to, 83. + + Genung, G. F., on "an apocalypse of Kipling," 245. + + Giddings, F. H., reference to, 9, 10, 19, 20, 62, 117; + on the "social mind," 138. + + God, immanence of, as related to social consciousness, 40 ff; + his will, ethical basis of social consciousness, 44 ff; + sharing in our life, 48; + will of, felt in ethical command, 90; + his gifts require ethical attitude to receive them, 91, 92; + our sharing his life, 93; + we cannot do his will in general, 100; + a thoroughly personal conception of, needed, 207 ff; + guarding the conception of, 208 ff, 211; + suprapersonal in, 209; + Nash on doctrine of personality of, 210; + always completely personal, 212 ff; + relation to eternal truths, 212 ff; + as eternally creating, 214 ff; + unity and unchangeableness of, 216 ff; + limiting conception of immanence of, 217 ff; + deepening thought of Fatherhood of, 218 ff; + as the great servant, 219; + no arbitrariness in, 220; + passibility of God, 221; + trinity in, 222 ff. + + Grahame, Kenneth, on love, 123; + referred to, 124. + + + Harnack, A., on Christ, 200. + + Harris, J. R., quoted, 234. + + Hegel, on greatest in art, 119. + + Heredity, not to be over-emphasized, 37; + James, on, 37, 38. + + Herrmann, W., referred to, 22, 70, 173; + his definition of mysticism, 56, 57; + on pantheistic tendency in mysticism, 58, 74; + on our satisfaction in Christ, 94; + on the help of the fellowship of the church, 161; + on Christ's rising to his ideals, 194; + on Christ's calling out absolute trust, 199; + on personal relation to God, 237. + + Historical, the, under-estimated by mysticism, 72. + + Historical justification needed by social consciousness, 59 ff, 102 ff. + + Historically, the, Christian, emphasized by the social consciousness, + 102 ff. + + History, no mere natural process, 218 ff; + God in, vii, 219. + + Holy Spirit, doctrine of, often made superstitious, 236. + + Honesty of the world, double meaning of, 80. + + Hope for men, increased by sense of likeness, 128. + + Hosea, as illustration of inter-play of human and divine relations, 68. + + Howells, W. D., his _A Boy's Town_, quoted, 118; + referred to, 123. + + Howison, G. H., on the person, 180, 208, 230; + referred to, 210. + + Humanity, idea of, from Christianity, 13. + + + Ideal view, requires the facts of the social consciousness, 29 ff, 32 ff. + + Imitation, to be avoided, 172 ff. + + Immanence of God, as metaphysical ground of facts of social + consciousness, 40 ff; + Lotze on, 40, 41; + limitations in conception of, 217 ff. + + "Immortability," discussed, 124 ff. + + Immortality, J. S. Mill on, 50; + Sully on, 50; + doctrine of, as affected by sense of likeness of men, 124 ff; + references on, 125. + + Indian mysticism, 74. + + Israel, significance of its social struggle, 63; + ecstasy among its prophets, 64. + + + James, William, on heredity, 37; + on metaphysics, 40; + on sense of reality, 72; + on nitrous-oxide-gas intoxication, 74; + on the world as a confusion, 78; + reference to, 79, 122, 124, 126; + on compensations, 117; + on varied ideals, 128; + on catching faith and courage, 147. + + Jesus, Brooks on his intellectual life, 81; + on his emotional life, 84; + relation to, necessarily ethical, 89, 94, 96; + satisfies our highest claims on life, 94; + his social emphases, 111 ff; + Brooks on his interest in the uninteresting, 124; + the great Christian confession, 174 ff; + loyalty to, best assurance for doctrine, 175; + the personal in, 184 ff; + a personal revelation of God, 184 ff; + the moral and spiritual in his supremacy, 185 ff; + grounds of his supremacy, 188 ff; + among founders of religion, 189 ff; + his sinlessness, 192 ff; + his impenitence, 193; + rises to highest ideals, 194 ff; + shows character of God, 195 ff; + consciously able to redeem all men, 196; + transcendent God-consciousness and sense of mission, 197 ff; + calls out absolute trust, 198 ff; + in him God certainly finds us, 199 ff; + the ideal realized, 200 ff; + his double uniqueness, 201 ff; + sense of kinship with, and reality of, 205 ff; + divinity of, as related to Trinity, 224; + reverence for person in, 226 ff. + + Judgment, according to light, 132 ff; + how God's can be favorable, 153 ff; + reverence for person in, 237 ff; + according to law of liberty, 238 ff. + + + Kaftan, J., referred to, 86. + + Keim, quoted, 52. + + King, references to his _Reconstruction in Theology_, 16, 20, 23, + 43, 67, 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218. + + Kipling, R., on the value of the common, 119; + G. F. Genung on, 245. + + + Lanier, S., quoted, on Christ, 201. + + Leibnitz, referred to, 172. + + Life, the richest, ideal conditions of, 68 ff. + + Like-mindedness of men, 9 ff; + an element of social consciousness, 9 ff, 47; + influence on theology, 115 ff; + summary on, 134; + seen under diverse forms, 121 ff. + + Lotze, reference to, 13, 25, 31, 42, 213, 214; + on passion for construing everything, 25, 26; + on immanence of God, 40. + + Love, sense of, 20; + element in social consciousness, 20, 51; + as motive in creation, 215. + + + Man, the personal in, 180 ff; + separateness from God, 180 ff; + freedom in, 181 ff; a child of God, 183 ff. + + Matheson, George, on sacrifice, 49. + + McConnell, S. D., objection to one part in his argument as to + immortality, 124 ff. + + McCurdy, on the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63. + + Metaphysical, not to be emphasized, in conception of Christ, 185 ff; + how to be thought, as to Christ, 203, 204; + in doctrine of Trinity, 226. + + Mill, J. S., on immortality, 50. + + Moral world, prerequisites of, 30 ff; + sphere of law, 30; + ethical freedom, 30; + some power of accomplishment, 31; + members one of another, 32. + + Mistiness in mysticism, 73. + + Moral initiative in men, 181 ff. + + Moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98. + + Mulford, E., referred to, 229. + + Muensterberg, H., referred to, 79; + reference to his _Psychology and Life_, 79. + + Mutual influence of men, 11 ff; + contributing lines of thought, 11 ff; + threefold form of the conviction, 13 ff; + as element of social consciousness, 11 ff, 50; + influence upon theological doctrine, 136 ff; + for good, 144 ff; + in attainment of character, 145 ff; + in personal relation to God, 160 ff; + in confession of faith, 167 ff. + + Mystical, the falsely, opposition of the social consciousness to, + 55 ff, 57 ff; + Nash's definition of, 55, 56; + Herrmann's definition of, 56, 57; + unethical, 58; + no real personal God, 58; + belittles personal in man, 59; + Paul's rejection of, 60, 61; + leaves historically Christian, 62 ff. + + Mystical, the truly, emphasized by the social consciousness, 66 ff, + 70 ff; + requires laws of a deepening friendship, 67; + requires ideal conditions of the richest life, 68; + protest in favor of whole man, 78 ff; + its self-controlled recognition of emotion, 82 ff. + + Mysticism, its relation to the social consciousness, 55 ff; + false, 55 ff; + true, 66 ff, 70 ff; + justifiable and unjustifiable elements in, 71 ff; + its dangers: + emotionalism, 71; + subjectivism, 72; + under-estimating historical, 72; + mistiness, 73; + pantheism, 73 ff; + symbolism, 76. + justifiable elements in, summed up, 77. + + + Nash, H. S., on ethical basis of social consciousness in will of God, + 45 ff; + his definition of the mystical, 55, 56; + referred to, 70; + on doctrine of divine personality, 210; + on the supernatural, 217. + + Neo-Darwinian school, referred to, 37. + + Neo-Platonic mysticism, 55 ff, 74. + + _New World, The_, reference to, 12, 120. + + Neitzsche, criticism of, by Everett, 120. + + + Obligation, sense of, 18 ff; + element in social consciousness, 18, 51. + + Organism, analogy of, 23 ff; + value of, 23; + classical expression in I Cor. 12; + inadequacy of, for social consciousness, 24 ff: + comes from the sub-personal world, 24; + access to reality only through ourselves, 24; + mistaken passion for construing everything, 25; + tested by definition of social consciousness, 26 ff. + + Orr's _The Christian View of God and the World_, reference to, 51. + + + Pantheism, tendency to, in mysticism, 58, 74. + + Paul, his rejection of the falsely mystical, 60, 61, 83. + + Paulsen, on key to reality, 25; + reference to, 30, 129; + on necessity of faith, 46, 47. + + Peabody, F. G., referred to, 65; + on the social principles of Jesus, 111; + on Christ's individualism, 229. + + Person, value of, 16 ff, 50; + influence of sense of value of, on theology, 179 ff; + reverence for, characterizing all God's relation to men, 226 ff. + + Personal, the, recognition of, 179 ff; + recognition of, in man, 180 ff; + recognition of, in Christ, 184 ff; + recognition of, in God, 207 ff. + + "Personal idealism," 180, 181, 210. + + Personal relation, in religion, emphasized by social consciousness, + 66 ff; + leads to the truly mystical, 70 ff. + + Philo, as representative of mysticism, 55. + + _Philosophical Review, The_, reference to, 40. + + Philosophy, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12. + + Plato, his position abandoned by mysticism, 56. + + Plotinus, as representative of mysticism, 55. + + Prophets, the, their standpoint abandoned by Philo, 55; + their sense of the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63; + ecstasy in, 64. + + Propitiation, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 156, 158 ff. + + Providence, reverence for person in, 232 ff. + + Psychology, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12. + + Purpose and causality, 42, 43. + + + Race-connection, not prime cause of unity of men, 35 ff. + + Race, real unity of, 136 ff; + its solidarity, how conceived, 16, 35, 30, 137. + + Ranke, on Christ, 192. + + Rational, two senses of, 80. + + _Reconstruction in Theology_, references to, 16, 20, 23, 43, 67, + 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218. + + Redemption, as viewed from point of view of mutual influence for good, + 147 ff; + the cost of, 150; + substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff. + + Religion, and theology, 6, 113; + influence of the social consciousness upon, 53 ff, 70 ff; + the personal relation in, emphasized by the social consciousness, + 66 ff; + its thorough ethicizing demanded by social consciousness, 86 ff; + and ethics, 87; + a supreme factor in life, 189. + + Reverence for the person characterizing all God's relations to men, + 226 ff; + reflected in Christ, 226 ff; + in creation, 230 ff; + in providence, 232 ff; + in the personal religious life, 233 ff; + in the judgment, 237 ff; + in the future life, 240 ff. + + Ritschl, A., referred to, 137. + + Royce, Josiah, reference to, 12. + + + Sabatier, A., reference to, 171. + + Sanday, W., reference to, 187. + + Schiller, F. C, S., reference to, 40. + + Science, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 11. + + Scotist position as to God, 213. + + Separateness from God, meaning of, 180 ff. + + Sin, sense of, deepened by social consciousness, 139 ff; + Drummond on, 140; + lack of sense of, among Greeks, 140; + when most feared, 143. + + Smith, G. A., reference to, 64. + + Social consciousness, definition, 9 ff; + elements in, 9 ff; + meaning of, for theology, 5 ff; + analogy of organism, inadequate for, 24 ff; + analogy, tested, 26 ff; + necessity of its facts for ideal interests, 29 ff; + the question, 29; + else, no moral world, 30 ff, 32 ff; + ultimate explanation and ground of, 35 ff; + metaphysical ground, 35 ff: + not due to physical race-connection, 35 ff; + nor primarily to heredity, 37 ff; + nor to mystical solidarity, 37 ff; + but to immanence of God, 40 ff; + ethical basis, 44 ff; + supporting will of God, 44; + Nash on, 45; + Paulsen on, 46; + God's sharing in our life, 48 ff; + consequent transfiguration of, 49 ff. + its influence upon religion, 53 ff; + opposed to the falsely mystical, 57 ff; + emphasizes personal relation in religion, and so the truly mystical, + 66 ff; + demands the ethicizing of religion, 86 ff; + needs historical justification, 102 ff; + its influence upon theological doctrine, 105 ff: + general results, 105 ff; + influence of like-mindedness of men, 115 ff; + of mutual influence of men, 136 ff; + of sense of value of person, 179 ff. + + "Social mind," real meaning of, 138; + Giddings on, 138. + + "Social Trinity," 222 ff. + + Solidarity, a mystical, not to be pressed, 39. + + Solidarity of race, often falsely conceived, 16, 35, 39, 137 ff. + + Stevenson, R. L., on the poetical and ideal in men, 122; + referred to, 123, 124. + + Subjectivism, tendency to, in mysticism, 72. + + Substitution, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 158 ff. + + Sully, J., on immortality, 50. + + Supra-personal, the, in God, 209. + + Symbolism, strong tendency to, in mysticism, 76. + + Sympathy with men, increased by sense of likeness, 127. + + + Tennyson, his self-hypnotism, 74. + + Theme of the book, 1 ff. + + Theologian, the, an interpreter, 5; + a believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests, 6; + assumes the fact of religion, 6; + assumes a personal God, 7; + takes point of view of Christ, 7. + + Theologian's, the, point of view, 5 ff. + + Theology, and religion, 6, 113; + in personal terms, 106 ff; + Fatherhood of God, determining principle in, 109; + as influenced by social consciousness, 105 ff; + general results in, 105 ff; + influence of likeness of men on, 115 ff; + influence of mutual influence of men on, 136 ff; + influence of value of person on, 179 ff. + + Thomist position as to God, 223. + + Trinity, doctrine of, 222 ff; + biblical, 224, 225. + + "Trinity, Social," 222 ff. + + Tritheism, involved in a real social trinity, 222 ff. + + Triunity of God, doctrine of, 223 ff. + + "Truths, eternal," God's relation to, 212 ff. + + + Unchangeableness of God, 216 ff. + + Unconscious Christianity, 130. + + Uniqueness, a double, in Christ, 201 ff; + metaphysical, 203, 204; + ethical, 204, 205. + + + Value and sacredness of person, 16 ff; + sense of, element in social consciousness, 16, 50. + + + Weismann, referred to, 37. + + + Transcriber's Notes: Page 182, "GOd" changed to "God". Inconsistent + hyphenation retained. Apparent printer's punctuation errors + corrected. 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