Human Traits and their Social Significance Part 26

[Footnote 1: A. Sabatier: _Esquisse d'une Philosophie de la Religion_ (ed. 1897), pp. 24-26.]

In prayer, furthermore, we may hope to find not the fulfillment of our desires, but what our desires really are. We are released temporarily from tension of temporal and selfish longings. We hold a tranquil and reverential speech with a power not ourselves, and in communion with the infinite purge ourselves of the dross of immediate personal needs.

In such a peaceful interlude we may find at once clarity and rest. Prayer, at its highest, might be defined as audible meditation, controlled by the sense of the divinity of the power we are addressing. So that the truly spiritual man prays not for the fulfillment of his own accidental longings, but pleads rather: "Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, 0 Lord, my strength and my redeemer."

FEAR AND AWE. Man's att.i.tude toward the divine was noted to have arisen partly in his feeling of dependence on personal forces incomparably superior to himself, and in his urgent need for winning their favor. In primitive man this sense of dependence was certainly bound up with a feeling of fear.

It must be borne in mind that uncivilized peoples had pathetically little understanding or control of the forces of Nature. In consequence on being afflicted with some sudden catastrophe of famine or disease, on experiencing a sudden revelation in storm, wind, or volcanic eruption, of the terrible magnificence of elemental forces, he must have been struck with dread. He was living in a world that appeared to him much less ordered and regular than ours appears to us. His prayers and sacrifices were not always friendly and confidential intercourse with the G.o.ds; they were as often ways of averting the evils of malicious and terrifying demons. The enemies of religion have been fond of pointing out how much of it has been a quaking fear of the supernatural. It is in this spirit that Lucretius's bitter attack is conceived.

When the life of man lay foul to see and grovelling upon the earth, crushed by the weight of religion, which showed her face from the realms of heaven, lowering upon mortals with dreadful mien, 't was a man of Greece who dared first to raise his mortal eyes to meet her, and first to stand forth to meet her; him neither the stories of the G.o.ds nor thunderbolts checked, nor the sky with its revengeful roar, but all the more spurred the eager daring of his mind to yearn to be the first to burst through the close-set bolts upon the doors of nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: Lucretius: _De Rerum Natura_, book I; lines 28-38.]

Primitive man feared the G.o.ds as much as he needed them.

Jane Harrison points out, for example, that as great a part of Greek religion was given over to the exorcising of the evil and jealous spirits of the underworld, as in friendly communion with the beautiful and gracious Olympians.

But what appears in the ignorant and hara.s.sed savage as fear may be transformed in civilized man into awe. Long after man's crouching physical terror of the divine has pa.s.sed away, he may still live awed by the ultimate power that orders the universe. He may, "at twilight, or in a mountain gorge,"

at a canon or waterfall, experience an involuntary thrill and breathlessness, a deepened sense of the divinity which so orders these things. He may have the same feeling at the crises of life, at birth, disease, and death. He may sense on occasion that overwhelming and infinite power of which Job becomes aware, as he listens to the voice out of the whirlwind:

Who hath divided a water course for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder?

To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man; To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth? ...

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? ...

Knowest thou the ordinances of Heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? ...

Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are?

Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? Or who hath given understanding to the heart?

Where man experiences such awe, he will become reverential, and, if articulate, will express his reverence in prayer, again not the prayer of practical requests for favors from G.o.d, but a hushed meditation upon the a.s.sured eternity in which the precarious and finite lives of men are set.

REGRET, REMORSE--REPENTANCE AND PENANCE. Regret is a sufficiently common human experience. There are for most men wistful backward glances in which they realize what might have been, what might have been done, what might have been accomplished. For many this never rises above pique and bitterness over personal failure, a chagrin, as it were, over having made the wrong move. But to some regret may take on a deeply spiritual quality. Instead of regretting merely the successes which he hoped, as it proved vainly, to attain, a man may become pa.s.sionately aware of his own moral and spiritual shortcomings. This sense of dereliction and delinquency may take extreme forms. James quotes a reminiscence of Father Gratry, a Catholic philosopher:

... All day long without respite I suffered an incurable and intolerable desolation, verging on despair. I thought myself, in fact, rejected by G.o.d, lost, d.a.m.ned! I felt something like the suffering of h.e.l.l. Before that I had never even thought of h.e.l.l.... Now, and all at once, I suffered in a measure what is suffered there.[1]

[Footnote 1: Quoted by James in his _Varieties_, p. 146.]

Normal individuals may come to a deep consciousness of having left undone the things they ought to have done, of having done the things they ought not to have done. This realization may be at once a "consciousness of sin," and a desire for a new life. If it is the consciousness of sin which becomes predominant, then a desolate and tormenting remorse engulfs the individual. But the consciousness of sin for the religious becomes simply a prelude to entrance upon a better life. The awareness of past sins is combined in the religious, especially in devout Christians, with faith in G.o.d's mercy, and in his welcoming of the penitent sinner:

The sacrifices of G.o.d are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O G.o.d, thou wilt not despise.

Have mercy upon me, O G.o.d; according to thy loving kindness, blot out my transgressions.

Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Again the New Testament call to repentance is symbolic of the experience of millions of religious people. "Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand." There is a terrible intensity and immediate imperativeness about this call. But to all there comes at one time or another an urgent sense of spiritual shortcoming and the desire to lead a better life.

The lamenting of sins becomes the least part; what is important is the immense new impetus toward a better life. The records of religious conversion are full of instances where men by this sudden penitential revulsion from their past life and a startled realization of new spiritual possibilities, have broken away permanently from lifelong habitual vices. James cites a case of an exceedingly belligerent and pugilistic collier named Richard Weaver, who was by a sudden conversion to religion not only made averse to fighting, but persistently meek and gentle under provocation. Similar cases, genuine and well doc.u.mented, fill the archives of religious psychology.

The religious man in repenting knows that G.o.d will, if his repentance is sincere, forgive him, and sustain and support him in his new life.

I say unto you that likewise Joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.

I say unto you there is joy in the presence of the angels of G.o.d over one sinner that repenteth.[1]

[Footnote 1: Luke, 15: 7,10.]

While regret over sin, alienation from a past life of evil, and a persistent dedication to a purified and righteous existence const.i.tute, spiritually, the phenomena of repentance and conversion, repentance has had in religion certain fixed outward forms. If sin had been committed, merely inward spiritual realization was not sufficient, penance must be done. Penance in the early days of the Christian Church was public.

Later penance became a private matter (public penance was suppressed by an ordinance of Pope Leo I in 461 A.D.).

Private penance took various familiar forms, such as scourgings, fastings on bread and water, reciting a given number of psalms, prayers, and the like. Later penalties could be redeemed by alms. A penitent would be excused from the prescribed works of penance at the cost, _e. g._, of equipping a soldier for the crusade, of building a bridge or road. Gradually in the history of the Christian religion, penances have been lightened. In the Protestant Church, with the enunciation of the principle of justification through faith alone there could be no sacrament of penance.

One form in which the penitential mood receives expression is in confession in which the penitent acknowledges his sins.

There is no s.p.a.ce here to trace the development of this practice in religion. It must suffice to point out that psychologically it is a cleansing or purgation. It clears the moral atmosphere.

It is a relief to the tormented and remorseful soul to say "Peccavi," and to confide either directly or indirectly to the divine the burden of his sins. It is for many people the necessary pre-condition, as it is in the Catholic Church, to penitence and the actual performance of penance.

The psychological value of confession varies with individual temperaments; for many it is high. There are few so self-contained and self-sufficient that they do not seek to express their emotions to others. It is not surprising that the gregarious human creature should find confession a restorative and a solace. Human beings are not only natively responsive to the emotions of others, but by nature tend to express their own emotions and to be gratified by a sympathetic response.

Emotions of any sort, joyous or sorrowful, find some articulation.

The oppressive consciousness of sin particularly must find an outlet in expression. And the expression of sin must somewhere be received. The wrong done rankles heavily in the private bosom. The crucified soul demands a sympathetic spirit to receive its painful and personal revelation.

He that would confess his sins requires a listener of a large and understanding heart. Just such a merciful, forgiving, and understanding friend is the G.o.d whom Christianity pictures.

G.o.d waits with infinite patience for the confessions and the surrender of the contrite heart. The normal human desire to rid one's self of a tormenting secret, to "exteriorize one's rottenness," finds satisfaction on an exalted plane in confession to G.o.d, or to his appointed ministers.

JOY AND ENTHUSIASM--FESTIVALS AND THANKSGIVINGS. So far our account has been confined to experiences in which man felt the need or fear of the divine, because of his own desires, weaknesses, or sins. But humans find religious expression for more joyous emotions. Even primitive man lives not always in terror or in tribulation. There are occasions, such as plentiful harvests, successful hunting, the birth of children, which stir him to expressions of enthusiastic appreciation and grat.i.tude toward the divine. Some of the so-called Dionysiac festivals in ancient Greece are examples of the enthusiasm, joy, and abounding vitality to which religion has, among so many other human experiences, given expression. In the religion of the Old Testament, again, we find that the Psalmist is time and again filled with rejoicing:

O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endureth forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy.

And he gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in.

Hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them.

Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.

And he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation.

O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.

For he satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry heart with goodness.

Nor need this rejoicing be always an explicit thanksgiving for favors received. It may be, as were the dithyrambic festivals of Greece, the riotous overflow of enthusiasm, a joyous, sympathetic exuberance with the vital processes of Nature. Dionysos stood for fertility, life, gladness, all the positive, pa.s.sionate, and jubilant aspects of Nature. And the well-known satyr choruses, the wine and dance and song of the Greek spring festivals, are cla.s.sic and beautiful ill.u.s.trations of the religion of enthusiasm. Euripides gives voice to this spirit in the song of the Maenads in the _Bacchoe_:

"Will they ever come to me, ever again, The long, long dances, On through the dark till the dim stars wane?

Shall I feel the dew on my throat and the stream Of wind in my hair? Shall our white feet gleam In the dim expanses?

O feet of a fawn to the greenward fled, Alone in the gra.s.s and the loveliness?"[1]

[Footnote 1: Euripides: _Bacchoe_ (Gilbert Murray translation).]

Every religion has its festival as well as its fast days. Sacrifices come to be held less as offerings to jealous G.o.ds than as sacrificial feasts, in which the worshipers themselves partake, as opportunities for communal rejoicings and for friendly fellowship with divinity. At sacrificial feasts it is as if the G.o.ds themselves were at table.

Dance and song are a regular accompaniment of primitive religion. Students of Greek drama, such as Jane Harrison and Gilbert Murray, trace Greek tragedy back to the choruses and dances of early Dionysiac festivals. Throughout the history of religion not only have man's sorrow and need been expressed, but also his sympathetic gladness with vitality, fertility, and growth, his rejoicings over the fruitions and glad eventualities of experience. Man has felt the decay and evanescence of human goods. He has felt also the exuberance of natural processes, the triumph of life over death when a child is born, the renewal of life by food, the recurrence of growth and fertility in the processes of the seasons, of sowing and of harvest. And for all these enrichments and enlargements of life, he has rejoiced, and found rituals to express his rejoicings. He has had the impulse and the energy to sing unto the Lord a new song.

THEOLOGY. Thus far we have discussed the religious experience _as_ an experience, as normal, natural, and inevitable as are love and hate, melancholy and exaltation, joy and sorrow.

Like these latter, the religious experience is subjected to rationalization. Like all other emotions, that of religion finds for itself a logic and a justification. But so profoundly influential is "cosmic emotion" on men's lives that when it is reasoned upon, the results are nothing less than an att.i.tude taken toward the whole of reality. Theology arises as a world view formulated in accordance with a reasoned interpretation of the religious experience. It must be noted again that the experience is primary. If men had not first had the experience of religion, they would not have reflected about it.

Every contact of the individual with the world to some degree arouses emotion and provokes thought. It is not different with religion. That theologies should differ and conflict is not surprising. No two individuals, no two groups or ages have precisely the same experiences of the world, and their reasonings upon their religious feelings are bound to differ, overlap, and at times to conflict. The variety of world views are testimony to the genuineness of the religious experience as it fulfills the different needs, emotions, and desires of different ages, groups, and generations of men.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE DIVINE. Reasonings upon religion exhibit, like the religious emotions, certain recurrent features.

There is, in the first place, a certain universality in the description of the objects of veneration. These are nearly always regarded as self-sufficient in contrast with man. Man seeks, strives, desires, has partial triumphs and pitiful failures, is always in travail after some ideal. His life is incomplete; at best it is a high aspiration; it is never really fulfilled.

But divinity has nearly always been regarded as seeking nothing, asking nothing, needing nothing. This is what infinity in practical terms means. And, with certain exceptions presently to be noted, the divine power has always been regarded as infinite. Thus Aristotle says that in man's best moments, when he lives in reflection a life of self-sufficiency, he lives just such a life as G.o.d lives continually. And Plato describes the philosopher as a man who because he can live, at least temporarily, amid eternal, changeless beauty and truth, "lives in recollection among those things among which G.o.d always abides, and in beholding which G.o.d is what he is." Lucretius also gives a simple picture of the even calmness and still, even security of the life of the G.o.ds as he and all the Epicureans conceived it. Tennyson paraphrases the picture: