Christianity and Ethics Part 17

for all, treating, as Kant would say, every man as an 'end,' and not as a means. Morally no man may disregard the claims of others. It is said, indeed, that we must be 'just before we are generous.' But a full and perfect conception of Justice involves generosity. There is no such thing as bare justice. Righteousness, which is the New Testament equivalent, demands more than negative goodness, and in Christian Ethics {193} pa.s.ses over into Charity, which finds and fulfils itself in others.

Love here and always is the fulfilling of the law, and mercy, benevolence, kindness are the implicates of true justice.

2. It is thus evident that the cardinal virtues are essential elements of Christian character. Christianity, in taking over the moral conceptions of the ancient world, gave to them a new value and range by directing them to new objects and enthusing them with new motives. It has been truly said that the religion of Jesus so profoundly modified the character of the moral ideals of the past that they became largely new creations. The old moral currency was still kept in circulation, but it was gradually minted anew.[13] Fort.i.tude is still the cool and steady behaviour of a man in the presence of danger; but its range is widened by the inclusion of perils of the soul as well as the body. Temperance is still the control of the physical pa.s.sions; but it is also the right placing of new affections, and the consecration of our impulses to n.o.bler ends. Justice is still the suppression of conflict with the rights of others; but the source of it lies in giving to G.o.d the love which is His due, and finding in the objects of His thought the subjects also of our care. Wisdom is still the practical sense which chooses the proper course of action; but it is no longer a selfish calculation of advantage, but the wisdom of men who are seeking for themselves and others not merely temporal good, but a kingdom which is not of this world.

The real reason, then, why Christianity seems by contrast to accentuate the gentler graces is not simply as a protest against the spirit of militarism and the worship of physical power, so prevalent in the ancient world--not merely that they were neglected--but because they and they alone, rightly considered, are of the very essence of that perfection of character which G.o.d has revealed to man in Christ. What Christianity has done is not to give pre-eminence to one cla.s.s over another, but _to make human character complete_. Ancient civilisation was one-sided in its moral {194} development. The pagan conceptions of virtue were merely materialistic, temporal, and self-regarding. Christ showed that without the spirit of love even such excellences as courage, temperance, and justice did not attain to their true meaning or yield their full implication. Paul, as we have seen, did not disparage heroism, but he thought that it was exhibited as much, if not more, in patience and forgiveness as in self-a.s.sertion and retaliation. What Christianity really revealed was a new type of manliness, a fresh application of temperance, a fuller development of justice. It showed the might of meekness, the power of gentleness, the heroism of sacrifice.

3. It is thus misleading to say that Christian Ethics differs from ancient morality in the prominence it gives to what have been called 'the pa.s.sive virtues.' Poverty of spirit, humility, meekness, mercifulness, and peaceableness are indeed the marks of Christ's teaching. But as Christ conceived them they were not pa.s.sive qualities, but intensely active energies of the soul. It has been well remarked that[14] there was a poverty of spirit in the creed of the cynic centuries before Christianity. There was a meekness in the doctrine of the Stoic long before the advent of Jesus. But these tenets were very far from being antic.i.p.ations of Christ's morality. Cynic poverty of spirit was but the poor-spiritedness of apathy. Stoic meekness was merely the indifference of oblivion. But the humility and lowliness of heart, the mercifulness and peace-seeking which Christ inculcated were essentially powers of self-restraint, not negative but positive att.i.tudes to life. The motive was not apathy but love. These qualities were based not on the idea that life was so poor and undesirable that it was not worthy of consideration, but upon the conviction that it was so grand and n.o.ble, something so far beyond either pleasure or pain, as to demand the devotion of the entire self--the mastery and consecration of all a man's powers in the fulfilment and service of its divine end.

Hence what Christianity did was not so much to inst.i.tute {195} one type of character for another as to exhibit for the first time the complete conception of what human life should be--a new creature, in whom, as in its great Exemplar, strength and tenderness, courage and meekness, justice and mercy were alike combined. For, as St. Paul said, in Christ Jesus there is neither male nor female, but all are as one. And in this character, as the same apostle finely shows, faith, hope, and charity have the primary place, not as special virtues which have been added on, but as the spiritual disposition which penetrates the entire personality and qualifies its every thought and act.

III

_The Unification of the Virtues_.--While it is desirable, then, to exhibit the virtues in detail, it is even more important to trace back the virtues to virtue itself. A man's duties are diverse, as diverse as the various occasions and circ.u.mstances of life, and they can only come into being with the various inst.i.tutions of his time, Church and State, home and country, commerce and culture. But the performance of these may be slowly building up in him a consistent personality. It is in character that the unity of the moral life is most clearly expressed.

There must be therefore a unity of character underlying the multiplicity of characteristics, one single and commanding principle at work in the formation of life of which every possible virtue is the expression.

1. A unity of this kind is supplied by man's relation to G.o.d. Religion cannot be separated from conduct. If it were true, as Epicurus said, that the G.o.ds take no concern in human affairs, then not religion only, but morality itself would be in danger. As men's conceptions of G.o.d are purified and deepened, they tend to exhibit the varied contents of morality in their connection with a diviner order. It is, then, the thought of man's relation to G.o.d which gives coherence to the moral life, and brings all its diverse manifestations into unity.

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If we examine the Christian consciousness as presented in the New Testament, we find three words of frequent occurrence repeatedly grouped together, which may be regarded as the essential marks of Christian character in relation to G.o.d--Faith, Hope, and Love.

So characteristic are these of the new life that they have been called the theological virtues, because, as Thomas Aquinas says, 'They have G.o.d for their object: they bring us into true relation to G.o.d, and they are imparted to us by G.o.d alone.'[15]

2. These graces, however, cannot be separated. A man does not exercise at one time faith, and at another time hope or love. They are all of a piece. They are but different manifestations of one virtue. Of these love is the greatest, because it is that without which faith and hope could not exist. Love is of the very essence of the Christian life. It is its secret and sign. No other term is so expressive of the spirit of Christ. It is the first and last word of apostolic Christianity. Love may be called the discovery of the Gospel. It was practically unknown in the ancient world. _Eros_, the sensuous instinct and _philia_, the bond of friendship, did exist, but _agape_ in its spiritual sense is the creation of Christ. In Christian Ethics love is primal and central.

Here we have got down to the bedrock of virtue. It is not simply one virtue among many. It is the quality in which all the virtues have their setting and unity. From a Christian point of view every excellence of character springs directly from love and is the manifestation of it. It is, as St. Paul says, 'the bond of perfectness.' The several virtues of the Christian life are but facets of this one gem.[16]

Love, according to the apostle, is indispensable to character. Without it Faith is an empty profession; {197} Knowledge, a mere parade of learning; Courage, a boastful confidence; Self-denial, a useless asceticism. Love is the fruitful source of all else that is beautiful and n.o.ble in life. It not only embraces but produces all the other graces. It creates fort.i.tude; it begets wisdom; it prompts self-restraint and temperance; it tempers justice. It manifests itself in humility, meekness, and forgiveness:

'As every hue is light, So every grace is love.'

Love is, however, closely a.s.sociated with faith and hope. Faith, as we have seen, is theologically the formative and appropriating power by which man makes his own the spirit of Christ. But ethically it is a form of love. The Christian character is formed by faith, but it lives and works by love. A believing act is essentially a loving act. It is a giving of personal confidence. It implies an outgoing of the self towards another--which is the very nature of love. Hope, again, is but a particular form of faith which looks forward to the consummation of the good. The man of hope knows in whom he believes, and he antic.i.p.ates the fulfilment of his longings. Hope is essentially an element of love.

Like faith it is a form of idealism. It believes in, and looks forward to, a better world because it knows that love is at the heart of the universe. As faith is the special counteragent against materialism in the present, so hope is the special corrective of pessimism in regard to the future. Love supplies both with vision. Christian hope, because based on faith and prompted by love, is no easy-going complacence which simply accepts the actual as the best of all possible worlds. The Christian is a man of hope because in spite of life's sufferings he never loses faith in the ideal which love has revealed to him. 'Tribulation,'

says St. Paul, 'worketh patience, and patience probation, and probation hope.' Hope has its social aspect as well as its personal; like faith it is one of the mighty levers of society. Men of hope are the saviours of the world. In days of persecution and doubt it is their courage which rallies the wavering hosts and gives others {198} heart for the struggle.

Every Christian is an optimist not with the reckless a.s.surance that calls evil good, but with the rational faith, begotten of experience, that good is yet to be the final goal of ill. 'Thy kingdom come' is the prayer of faith and hope, and the missionary enterprise is rooted in the confidence begotten of love, that He who has given to man His world-wide commission will give also the continual presence and power of His Spirit for its fulfilment.

3. Faith, hope, and charity are at once the root and fruit of all the virtues. They are the attributes of the man whom Christ has redeemed.

The Christian has a threefold outlook. He looks upwards, outwards, and inwards. His horizon is bounded by neither s.p.a.ce nor time. He embraces all men in his regard, because he believes that every man has infinite worth in G.o.d's eyes. The old barriers of country and caste, which separated men in the ancient world, are broken down by faith in G.o.d and hope for man which the love of Christ inspires. Faith, hope, and love have been called the theological virtues. But if they are to be called virtues at all, it must be in a sense very different from what the ancients understood by virtue. These apostolic graces are not elements of the natural man, but states which come into being through a changed moral character. They connect man with G.o.d, and with a new spiritual order in which his life has come to find its place and purpose. They were impossible for a Greek, and had no place in ancient Ethics. They are related to the new ideal which the Gospel has revealed, and obtain their value as elements of character from the fact that they have their object in the distinctive truth of Christianity--fellowship with G.o.d through Christ.

These graces are not outward adornments or optional accomplishments.

They are the essential conditions of the Christian man. They const.i.tute his inmost and necessary character. They do not, however, supersede or render superfluous the other virtues. On the contrary they trans.m.u.te and transfigure them, giving to them at once their coherence and value.

[1] Phil. iv. 8; 1 Peter ii. 9.

[2] 2 Peter i. 5.

[3] Cf. Sir Alex. Grant, _Aristotle's Ethics_.

[4] Cf. Wundt, _Ethik_, p. 147.

[5] Green, _Proleg. to Ethics_, section 249.

[6] _Idem_.

[7] Matt. v. 1-16.

[8] Gal. v. 22-3.

[9] Col. iii. 12, 13.

[10] Phil. iv. 8.

[11] 1 Cor. xiii.

[12] 2 Peter i. 5.

[13] Strong, _Christian Ethics_.

[14] Mathieson, _Landmarks of Christian Morality_.

[15] _Summa_, I. ii.

[16] An interesting parallel might be drawn between the Pauline conception of Love as the supreme pa.s.sion of the soul and lord of the emotions, and the Platonic view of Justice as the intimate spirit of order alike in the individual and the state, expressing itself in, and harmoniously binding together, the virtues of Temperance, Courage, and Wisdom.

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CHAPTER XII

THE REALM OF DUTY

We have now to see how the virtues issue in their corresponding duties and cover the whole field of life.

Virtues and duties cannot be strictly distinguished. As Paulsen remarks, 'They are but different modes of presenting the same subject-matter.'[1] Virtues are permanent traits of character; duties are particular acts which seek to realise virtues.

The word 'duty,' borrowed from Stoic philosophy, inadequately describes, both on the side of its obligation and its joy, the service which the Christian is pledged to offer to Christ. For the Christian the two moments of pleasure and duty are united in the higher synthesis of love.

In this chapter we shall consider, first, some aspects of Christian obligation; and, second, the particular duties which arise therefrom in relation to the self, others, and G.o.d.

I

ASPECTS OF DUTY

1. _Duty and Vocation_.--'While duty stands for a universal element there is a personal element in moral requirement which may be called vocation.'[2] As soon as the youth enters upon the larger world he has to make choice of a profession or life-work. Different principles may guide him in his selection. First of all, the circ.u.mstances {200} of life will help to decide the individual's career. Our calling and duties arise immediately out of our station. Already by parental influence and the action of home-environment character is being shaped, and tastes and purposes are created which will largely determine the future. Next to condition and station, individual capacity and disposition ought to be taken into account. No good work can be accomplished in uncongenial employment. A man must have not only fitness for his task, but also a love for it. Proper ambition may also be a determining factor. We have a right to make the most of ourselves, and to strive for that position in which our gifts shall have fullest scope. But the ultimate decision must be made in the light of conscience. Self-interest should not be our sole motive in the choice of a vocation. It is not enough to ask what is most attractive, what line of life will ensure the greatest material gain or worldly honour? Rather should we ask, Where shall I be safest from moral danger, and, above all, in what position of life, open to me, can I do the most good? It is not enough to know that a certain mode of livelihood is permitted by law; I must decide whether it is permitted to me as a Christian. For, after all, underlying, and giving purpose and direction to, our earthly vocation is the deeper calling of G.o.d into His kingdom. These cannot, indeed, be separated. We cannot divide our life into two sections, a sacred and a secular. Nor must we restrict the idea of vocation to definite spheres of work. Even those who are precluded by affliction from the activities of the world are still G.o.d's servants, and may find in suffering itself their divinely appointed mission. There is a divinity which shapes our ends, and in every life-calling there is something sacred. 'Saints,' says George Eliot, 'choose not their tasks, they choose but to do them well.'