Christianity and Ethics Part 10

[22] The writer regrets that the work of the Italian, Benedetto Croce, _Philosophy of the Practical, Economic and Ethic_ (Part II. of _Philosophy of the Spirit_), came to his knowledge too late to permit a consideration of its ethical teaching in this volume. Croce is a thinker of great originality, of whom we are likely to hear much in the future, and whose philosophy will have to be reckoned with. Though independent of others, his view of life has affinities with that of Hegel. He maintains the doctrine of development of opposites, but avoids Hegel's insistence upon the concept of nature as a mode of reality opposed to the spirit. Spirit is reality, the whole reality, and therefore the universal. It has two activities, theoretic and practical. With the theoretic man understands the universe; with the practical he changes it.

The Will is the man, and freedom is finding himself in the Whole.

[23] _Hibbert Journal_, April 1912.

[24] _Evol. Creat._, p. 161.

[25] _Idem_, p. 146.

[26] _Idem_, p. 165.

[27] _Hibbert Journal_.

[28] Browning.

[29] _Die Geistigen Stromunyen der Gegenwart_, p. 10.

[30] Cf. _Problem of Life_.

[31] Cf. _Life's Basis and Life's Ideal_.

[32] Hermann, _Bergson und Eucken_, p. 103.

[33] _The Problem of Life_, p. 152.

[34] Cf. von Hugel, _Hibbert Journal_, April 1912.

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CHAPTER VIII

THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL

The highest good is not uniformly described in the New Testament, and modern ethical teachers have not always been in agreement as to the chief end of life. While some have found in the teaching of Jesus the idea of social redemption alone, and have seen in Christ nothing more than a political reformer, others have contended that the Gospel is solely a message of personal salvation. An impartial study shows that both views are one-sided. On the one hand, no conception of the life of Jesus can be more misleading than that which represents Him as a political revolutionist. But, on the other hand, it would be a distinct narrowing of His teaching to a.s.sume that it was confined to the aspirations of the individual soul. His care was indeed primarily for the person. His emphasis was put upon the worth of the individual. And it is not too much to say that the uniqueness of Jesus' teaching lay in the discovery of the value of the soul. There was in His ministry a new appreciation of the possibilities of neglected lives, and a hitherto unknown yearning to share their confidence. It would be a mistake, however, to represent Christ's regard for the individual as excluding all consideration of social relations. The kingdom of G.o.d, as we shall see, had a social and corporate meaning for our Lord. And if the qualifications for its entrance were personal, its duties were social. The universalism of Jesus' teaching implied that the soul had a value not for itself alone, but also for others. The a.s.sertion, therefore, that the individual has a value cannot mean that he has a value in isolation. {128} Rather his value can only be realised in the life of the community to which he truly belongs. The effort to help others is the truest way to reveal the hidden worth of one's own life; and he who withholds his sympathy from the needy has proved himself unworthy of the kingdom.

While the writers of the New Testament vary in their mode of presenting the ultimate goal of man, they are at one in regarding it as an exalted form of _life_. What they all seek to commend is a condition of being involving a gradual a.s.similation to, and communion with, G.o.d. The distinctive gift of the Gospel is the gift of life. 'I am the Life,'

says Christ. And the apostle's confession is in harmony with his Master's claim--'For me to live is Christ.' Salvation is nothing else than the restoration, preservation, and exaltation of life.

Corresponding, therefore, to the three great conceptions of Life in the New Testament, and especially in the teaching of Jesus--'Eternal Life,'

'the kingdom of G.o.d,' and the perfection of the divine Fatherhood, 'Perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect'--there are three aspects, individual, social, and divine, in which we may view the Christian ideal.

I

Self-realisation is not, indeed, a scriptural word. But rightly understood it is a true element in the conception of life, and may, we think, be legitimately drawn from the ethical teaching of the New Testament.[1] Though the free full development of the individual personality as we conceive it in modern times does not receive explicit statement,[2] still one cannot doubt, that before every man our Lord does present the vision of a possible and perfect self. Christianity does not destroy 'the will to live,' but only the will to live at all costs. Even mediaeval piety only inculcated self-mortification as a stage towards a higher {129} self-affirmation. Christ nowhere condemns the inherent desire for a complete life. The end, indeed, which each man should place before himself is self-mastery and freedom from the world;[3] but it is a mastery and freedom which are to be gained not by asceticism but by conquest. Christ would awaken in every man the consciousness of the priceless worth of his soul, and would have him realise in his own person G.o.d's idea of manhood.

The ideal of self-realisation includes three distinct elements:

1. _Life as intensity of being_.--'I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.'[4] 'More life and fuller'

is the pa.s.sion of every soul that has caught the vision and heard the call of Jesus. The supreme good consists not in suppressed vitality, but in power and freedom. Life in Christ is a full, rich existence. The doctrine of quietism and indifference to joy has no place in the ethic of Jesus. Life is manifested in inwardness of character, and not in pomp of circ.u.mstance. It consists not in what a man has, but in what he is.[5]

The beat.i.tudes, as the primary qualifications for the kingdom of G.o.d, emphasise the fundamental principle of the subordination of the material to the spiritual, and the contrast between inward and outward good.[6]

Self-mastery is to extend to the inner life of man--to dominate the thoughts and words, and the very heart from which they issue. A divided life is impossible. The severest discipline, even renunciation, may be needful to secure that singleness of heart and strenuousness of aim which are for Jesus the very essence of life. 'Ye cannot serve G.o.d and mammon.'[7] In harmony with this saying is the opposition in the Johannine teaching between 'the world' and 'eternal life.'[8] The quality of life indeed depends not upon anything contingent or accidental, but upon an intense inward realisation of blessedness in Christ in comparison with which even {130} the privations and sufferings of this world are but as a shadow.[9] At the same time life is not a mere negation, not simply an escape from evil. It is a positive good, the enrichment and intensifying of the whole being by the indwelling of a new spiritual power. 'For me to live is Christ,' says St. Paul. 'This is life eternal,' says St. John, 'that they may know Thee the only true G.o.d, and Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.'[10]

2. _Life as Expansion of Personality_.--By its inherent power it grows outwards as well as inwards. The New Testament conception of life is existence in its fullest expression and fruitfulness. The ideal as presented by Christ is no anaemic state of reverie or ascetic withdrawal from human interest. It is by the elevation and consecration of the natural life, and not by its suppression, that the 'good' is to be realised. The natural life is to be transformed, and the very body presented unto G.o.d as a living sacrifice.[11] So far from Christianity being opposed to the aim of the individual to find himself in a world of larger interests, it is only in the active and progressive realisation of such a life that blessedness consists. Herein is disclosed, however, the defect of the modern ideal of culture which has been a.s.sociated with the name of Goethe. In Christ's ideal self-sufficiency has no place. While rightly interpreted the 'good' of life includes everything that enriches existence and contributes to the efficiency and completeness of manhood, mere self-culture and artistic expression are apt to become perverted forms of egoism, if not subordinated to the spirit of service which alone can give to the human faculties their true function and exercise. Hence life finds its real utterance not in the isolated development of the self, but in the fullness of personal relationships. Only in response to the needs of others can a man realise his own life. In answer to the young ruler who asked a question 'concerning that which is good,' Christ replied, 'If thou wilt enter into life keep the {131} commandments'; and the particular duties He mentioned were those of the second table of the Decalogue.[11] The abundance of life which Christ offers consists in the mutual offices of love and the interchange of service. Thus self-realisation is attained only through self-surrender.[13] The self-centred life is a barren life. Not by withholding our seed but by flinging it forth freely upon the broad waters of humanity do we attain to that rich fruition which is 'life indeed.'

3. _Life as Eternal Good_.--Whatever may be the accurate signification of the word 'eternal,' the words 'eternal life,' regarded as the ideal of man, can mean nothing else than life at its highest, the fulfilment of all that personality has within it the potency of becoming. In one sense there is no finality in life. 'It seethes with the morrow for us more and more.' But in another sense, to say that the moral life is never attained is only a half truth. It is always being attained because it is always present as an active reality evolving its own content. In Christ we have 'eternal life' now. It is not a thing of quant.i.ty but of quality, and is therefore timeless.

'We live in deeds not years, in thoughts not breaths, In feelings, not in figures on a dial.'[14]

He who has entered into fellowship with G.o.d has within him now the essence of 'life eternal.'

But the conception of life derived from, and sustained by, G.o.d involves the idea of immortality. 'No work begun shall ever pause for death.'[15]

To live in G.o.d is to live as long as G.o.d. The spiritual man pursues his way through conflict and achievement towards a higher and yet a higher goal, ever manifesting, yet ever seeking, the infinite that dwells in him. All knowledge and quest and endeavour, nay existence itself, would be a mockery if man had 'no forever.' Scripture corroborates the yearnings of the heart and represents life as a growing good which is to attain to ever higher reaches and fuller realisations in the world to {132} come. It is the unextinguishable faith of man that the future must crown the present. No human effort goes to waste, no gift is delusive; but every gift and every effort has its proper place as a stage in the endless process.[16]

'There shall never be lost one good! What was shall live as before.'[17]

II

The foregoing discussion leads naturally to the second aspect of the highest Good, the Ideal in its social or corporate form--_the kingdom of G.o.d_. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as an individual. As biologically man is only a member of a larger organism, so ethically he can only realise himself in a life of brotherhood and service. It is only within the kingdom of G.o.d and by recognition of its social relations that the individual can attain to his own blessedness. Viewed in the light of the mutual relation of its members the kingdom is a brotherhood in which none is ignored and all have common privileges and responsibilities; viewed in the light of its highest good it is the entire perfection of the whole--a hierarchy of interests subordinated to, and unified by, the sovereignty of the good in the person of G.o.d.[18]

1. By reason of its comprehensiveness the doctrine of the kingdom has been regarded by many as the most general conception of the ideal of Jesus. 'In its unique and unapproachable grandeur it dwarfs all the lesser heights to which the prophetic hopes had risen, and remains to this day the transcendent and commanding ideal of the possible exaltation of our humanity.'[19] The principles implicitly contained in the teaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom have become the common possessions of mankind, and are moulding the thoughts and inst.i.tutions of the civilised world. Kant's theory of a kingdom of ends, Comte's idea of Humanity, and the modern conceptions of scientific and {133} historical evolution are corroborative of the teaching of the New Testament. Within its conception men have found room for the modern ideas of social and economic order, and under its inspiration are striving for a fuller realisation of the aspirations and hopes of humanity.[20]

Though frequently upon His lips the phrase did not originate with Jesus.

Already the Baptist had employed it as the note of his preaching, and even before the Baptist it had a long history in the annals of the Jewish people. Indeed the entire story of the Hebrews is coloured by this conception, and in the days of their decline it is the idea of the restoration of their nation as the true kingdom of G.o.d that dominates their hopes. When earthly inst.i.tutions did not fulfil their promise, and nothing could be expected by natural means, hope became concentrated upon supernatural power. Thus before Jesus appeared there had grown up a ma.s.s of apocalyptic literature, the object of which was to encourage the national expectation of a sudden and supernatural coming of the kingdom of heaven. Men of themselves could do nothing to hasten its advent.

They could only wait patiently till the set time was accomplished, and G.o.d stretched forth His mighty hand.[21]

A new school of German interpretation has recently arisen, the aim of which is to prove that Jesus was largely, if not wholly, influenced by the current apocalyptic notions of His time. Jesus believed, it is said, in common with the popular sentiment of the day, that the end of the world was at hand, and that at the close of the present dispensation there would come suddenly and miraculously a new order into which would be gathered the elect of G.o.d. Johannes Weiss, the most p.r.o.nounced advocate of this view, maintains that Jesus' teaching is entirely eschatological. The kingdom is supramundane and still to come. Jesus did not inaugurate it; He only predicted its advent. Consequently there is no Ethics, strictly so called, in His {134} preaching; there is only an Ethic of renunciation and watchfulness[22]--an _Interimsethik_.

The whole problem resolves itself into two crucial questions: (1) Did Jesus expect a gradual coming of the kingdom, or did He conceive of it as breaking in suddenly by the immediate act of G.o.d? and (2) Did Jesus regard the kingdom as purely future, or as already begun?

In answer to the first question, while there are undoubtedly numerous and explicit sayings, too much neglected in the past and not to be wholly explained by mere orientalism, suggesting a sudden and miraculous coming, these must be taken in connection with the many other pa.s.sages implying a gradual process--pa.s.sages of deep ethical import which seem to colour our Lord's entire view of life and its purposes. And in answer to the second question, while there are not a few utterances which certainly point to a future consummation, these are not inconsistent with the immediate inauguration and gradual development of the kingdom.

A full discussion of this subject is beyond the scope of this volume.[23]

There are, however, two objections which may be taken to the apocalyptic interpretation of Christ's teaching as a whole. (1) As presented by its most p.r.o.nounced champions, this view seems to empty the person and teaching of Jesus of their originality and universality. It tends to reduce the Son of Man to the level of a Jewish rhapsodist, whose whole function was to encourage His countrymen to look away from the present scene of duty to some future state of felicity, which had no connection with the world of reality, and no bearing upon their present character.

It would be surely a caricature to interpret the religion of the New Testament from this standpoint alone to the exclusion of those directly ethical and spiritual {135} principles in which its originality chiefly appeared, and on which its permanence depends.[24] As Bousset[25] points out, not renunciation but joy in life is the characteristic thing in Jesus' outlook. He does not preach a gloomy asceticism, but proclaims a new righteousness and a new type of duty. He recognises the worth of the present life, and teaches that the world's goods are not in themselves bad. He came as a living man into a dead world, and by inculcating a living idea of G.o.d and proclaiming the divine Fatherhood gave a new direction and inner elevation to the expectations of His age, showing the true design of G.o.d's revelation and the real meaning of the prophetic utterances of the past. To interpret the kingdom wholly from an eschatological point of view would involve a failure to apprehend the spiritual greatness of the personality with which we are dealing.[26]

(2) This view virtually makes Christ a false prophet. For, as a matter of fact, the sudden and catastrophic coming of the kingdom as predicted by the Hebrew apocalyptics did not take place. On the contrary the kingdom of G.o.d came not as the Jews expected in a sudden descent from the clouds, but in the slow and progressive domination of G.o.d over the souls and social relationships of mankind. In view of the whole spirit of Jesus, His conception of G.o.d, and His relation to human life, as well as the att.i.tude of St. Paul to the Parousia, it is critically unsound to deny that Jesus believed in the presence of the kingdom in a real sense during His lifetime.[27]

2. If this conception of the kingdom of G.o.d be correct we may now proceed to regard it under three aspects, Present, Progressive, and Future--as a _Gift_ immediately bestowed by Jesus, as a _Task_ to be worked out by man in the history of the world, and as a _Hope_ to be consummated by G.o.d in the future.

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(1) _The Kingdom as a Present Reality_.--After what has been already said it will not be necessary to dwell upon this aspect. It might be supported by direct sayings of our Lord.[28] But the whole tenor and atmosphere of the Gospels, the uniqueness of Christ's personality, His claim to heal disease and forgive sin, as well as the conditions of entrance, imply clearly that in Jesus' own view the kingdom was an actual fact inaugurated by Him and obtaining its meaning and power from His own person and influence. Obviously He regarded Himself as the bearer of a new message of life, and the originator of a new reign of righteousness and love which was to have immediate application. Christ came to make G.o.d real to men upon the earth, and to win their allegiance to Him at once. No one can fail to recognise the lofty idealism of the Son of Man.

He carries with Him everywhere a vision of the perfect life as it exists in the mind of G.o.d, and as it will be realised when these earthly scenes have pa.s.sed away; yet it would be truer to say that His interests were in 'first things' rather than in 'last things,' and would be more justly designated Protology than Eschatology.[29] His mission, so far from having an iconoclastic aim, was really to 'make all things new.' He was concerned with the initiation of a new religion, therefore with a movement towards a regeneration of society which would be virtually a reign of G.o.d in the hearts of men. 'The kingdom of G.o.d is within you.'

Not in some spot remote from the world, some beautiful land beyond the skies, but in the hearts and homes, in the daily pursuits and common relationships of life must G.o.d rule. The beat.i.tudes, while they undoubtedly refer to a future when a fuller realisation of them will be enjoyed, have a present reference as well. They make the promise of the kingdom a present reality dependent upon the inner state of the recipients. Not in change of environment but in change {137} of heart does the kingdom consist. The lowly and the pure in heart, the merciful and the meek, the seekers after righteousness and the lovers of peace are, in virtue of their disposition and aspiration, already members.

(2) The kingdom as a _gradual development_.--The inward gift prescribes the outward task. It is a power commanding the hearts of men and requiring for its realisation their response. It might be argued that this call to moral effort presented to the first Christians was not a summons to transform the present world, but to prepare themselves for the destiny that awaited them in the coming age.[30] It is true that watchfulness, patience, and readiness are among the great commands of the New Testament.[31] But admitting the importance of these requirements, they do not militate against the view that Christians were to work for the betterment of the world. Christ did not look upon the world as hopeless and beyond all power of reclaiming; nor did He regard His own or His disciples' ministry within it as without real and positive effects.