The Christian Faith Under Modern Searchlights Part 9

Against Pragmatism, with which Eucken's Activism has some superficial resemblance, he argues for the "independent character of reality over against our experience of it." He believes that our deepest nature can be called into action only by the recognition of an Ought, which has an existence and value of its own, regardless of the opinions of any group of individuals or of the whole human race. "When the good of the individual and of humanity becomes the highest aim and the guiding principle, truth sinks to the level of a merely utilitarian opinion....

Truth can exist only as an end in itself. 'Instrumental' truth is no truth at all."[164]

164: "Main Currents of Modern Thought," p. 78.

The method of the intellectualist as well as of the voluntarist is inadequate to reach the truth of religion. Religion should be a fact of the whole man, and of his own decision, and it should recognize by a unique experience, which cannot be called exclusively feeling or thought or will, an encompa.s.sing and basal whole. Thought "left simply to its own resources would never be able to get beyond empty forms and highly abstract conceptions."[165] No merely intellectual form of religion is able to overcome doubt. Thus "the transformation of the Spiritual Life into an impersonal thought-process destroys it to its very foundation."

165: "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," p. 121; E. T., "The Truth of Religion," p. 176.

2. This effort, already in part described, to a.s.sert an independent spiritual world over against a natural world, this recognition of over-individual standards and of an absolute, self-subsistent Spiritual Life (_Geistesleben_), is called Universal Religion. The term G.o.dhead to indicate this conception is in some ways preferable to that of G.o.d. A higher stage of religion is indicated by Eucken's term Characteristic Religion, by which is meant a deeper insight into the divine, a more personal experience of the divine energy of Spiritual Life. Universal Religion, it may be said, is the demand or the feeling after G.o.d; while Characteristic Religion is the supply or the finding of G.o.d. In the effort to conform to the over-individual standards and to attain harmony with the divine, there is an inevitable sense of weakness and failure.

It becomes evident that man's own energy cannot save him from inner discord. "If a rescue is possible, Divine power and grace must do the work. That such power and grace really accomplish this, is the fundamental conviction of religion."[166] There originates a mutual intercourse with the soul and G.o.d as between an I and a Thou; and "consequently, there culminates here a movement away from the colourless conception of the G.o.dhead to that of a living and personal G.o.d."[167]

166: "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," p. 295; E. T., p. 425.

167: _Ibid._, p. 299; E. T., p. 430.

Eucken's teaching has been called a philosophical restatement of Christianity. He reiterates in philosophical language the theological doctrines of sin, of the new birth, of divine grace, and of the supremacy of Christian love. His argument for immortality is the religious argument: "The Infinite Power and Love that has grounded a new spontaneous nature in man, over against a dark and hostile world, will conserve such a new nature and its spiritual nucleus, and shelter it against all perils and a.s.saults, so that life as the bearer of life eternal can never be wholly lost in the stream of time."[168]

168: _"Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion,"_ p. 303; E. T., pp. 435 f.

3. From our exposition thus far it would seem unnecessary to ask the question, Can we still be Christians? and we are not surprised that Eucken's answer is, "We not only can but must be Christians."[169] A closer examination of his teaching shows that this question, and even the previous question, Can we still be theists? may naturally be raised.

It is true that Eucken recoils from pantheism as lessening the energy of life,[170] and declares that the transcendence of the Divine must be a.s.serted; but on the other hand we are warned that "the notion of the personal is here only a symbol for something transcending all conceptions and words."[171] It is too emotional and anthropomorphic.

Eucken will not declare unqualified allegiance either to pantheism, to theism in its usual form or to agnosticism. In the Spiritual Life the opposition of monism and dualism, and apparently of the personal and the impersonal, are transcended. The overcoming of opposites in a way impossible for reason is precisely the office and prerogative of religion. It is to be noticed in his account of spiritual life that prayer, "the core of religion," is singularly absent; and in his exposition of Christianity he gives no prominence to the Fatherhood of G.o.d, central as that conception was in the teaching of Jesus.

169: "Konnen wir noch Christen sein?" 1911, p. 236; E. T., "Can We Still Be Christians?" p. 218.

170: _Ibid._, p. 154; E. T., p. 143.

171: _Ibid._, p. 129; E. T., p. 120.

With the doctrine of personality thus loosely held, it is no wonder that there are many elements in Christianity as usually understood which are uncongenial to Eucken's mode of thought. We cannot, he says, confine the union of G.o.d and man to one unique instance, and we must demand an immediate relationship between G.o.d and man throughout the whole breadth of the Spiritual Life; nor can we make the expression of divine love and grace dependent upon its one expression in Jesus Christ.[172] One time cannot set the standard for all time,[173] nor one historical person, absolutely, for all persons. The denial of sensible miracle, he allows, cuts deep into historical Christianity, but such a denial is necessary.[174] To affirm miracle is to make the spiritual too dependent on the sensible, and such a central miracle as the Resurrection "would mean an overthrow of the total order of nature, as this has been set forth through the work of modern investigation."[175]

172: "Konnen wir noch Christen sein?" p. 186; E. T., p. 172.

173: _Ibid._, p. 28; E. T., p. 27.

174: _Ibid._, p. 167; E. T., p. 155.

175: "Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion," p. 370; E. T., p. 527.

However great the figure of Jesus may be, His greatness must be confined to the realm of humanity. "If Jesus, therefore, is not G.o.d, if Christ is not the second Person in the Trinity, then He is man; not a man like any average man among us, but still man. We can, then, revere Him as a leader, a hero, a martyr; but we cannot directly bind ourselves to Him or root ourselves in Him (_bei ihm festlegen_); we cannot submit to Him unconditionally. Still less can we make Him the object of a cult. To do so would be nothing less than an intolerable deification of a human being."[176]

176: "Konnen wir noch Christen sein?" p. 37; E. T., pp. 34 f.

What of those, we may ask, who in religious experience find themselves "rooted and grounded" in Christ? Eucken's readers cannot expect relief from this quarter, for religious experience, he holds, is too subjective and human to ground an inference to the nature of Spiritual Life.[177] It is evident that Eucken has cut deep into Christianity alike on its historical, its doctrinal and its experiential sides. He distinguishes between form and substance, but acknowledges that "religion has lost unspeakably much through the upheaval of the old form";[178] and that this must somehow be made good. We might, without violence in the comparison, imagine the case of a Mohammedan who, trained in modern modes of thought but clinging to old a.s.sociations, asked himself the question, Can we still be Mohammedans? "Yes," he might reply, "but we must retain only the essence or soul of Mohammedanism--its monotheism.

The historical body or existential form of Mohammedanism, namely, that Mohammed was the prophet of G.o.d and that the Koran is a revelation from heaven, must be given up. And even when we speak of the unity and personality of G.o.d, we must remember that we are employing symbol and metaphor."

177: Eucken's neglect of the experiential standpoint is a common complaint among his critics. See M. Booth: "R. Eucken: His Philosophy and Influence," p. 199.

178: "The Truth of Religion," p. 577. The German, p. 404, is less emphatic.

Eucken presents the remarkable phenomenon of a man whose thought is saturated with Christian influence, who appreciates the moral power and splendour of Christianity and its regenerative effects in history, and yet is unable to reconcile its distinctive features with the fundamental concepts of his philosophy. He shows the close connection of the questions, What think ye of Christ? and, What think ye of G.o.d? and that a.s.sured belief in the personality of G.o.d and in His incarnation in a Person belong together. "No one cometh to the Father but by me." That a Christianity such as Eucken preaches, removed from supports in history, in authoritative doctrine, in religious experience, perhaps even in a rational theism, can retain its moral power and act as a spiritual lever for the elevation either of the ma.s.ses or the cla.s.ses, remains to be proved.

Our twentieth century philosophers are the prophets of a new age.

Bergson's teaching opens before each individual and before humanity new possibilities of achievement, as, in obedience to the vital impulse, the army of humanity rushes on "in an overwhelming charge, able to beat down every resistance and clear the most formidable obstacles, perhaps even death."[179] Eucken, with the more serious burden of a moral message, has proclaimed with voice and pen the gospel of a new spiritual life and a new spiritual world. Do not these twentieth century prophets reecho in a certain sense, each in his own language, the message which was heard among the Galilean hills in an age from which the centuries are measured, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand"?

179: "L'evolution Creatrice," p. 294; E. T., p. 271.

III. WARD AND THE REALM OF ENDS

Our English speaking philosophers, in the more usual fashion, base their religious philosophy upon a theory of knowledge. It is noticeable, however, that both James Ward and Josiah Royce, while belonging to the idealistic tradition coming down from Kant and Hegel, show the influence of a revolt from that tradition. Ward begins with the many, with pluralism, while he ends with the one; and Royce declares himself an advocate of Absolute Pragmatism.

The great services of Ward to religious philosophy in his "Realm of Ends" are, first, his transition from pluralism to theism, and, second, his demonstration anew of the strength of the philosophical argument for immortality.

1. His theistic argument in a nutsh.e.l.l is this, that while there is no road from the One to the Many, there is an open road from the Many to the One, with sign-posts upon the way. We must start with pluralism, says Ward, because no reason can be given why the One, in whatever way conceived, should become the Many. Why should the h.o.m.ogeneous become heterogeneous, or the indeterminate determinate, or why should the absolute become split up into finite spirits? A creation out of nothing cannot, for Ward, solve the problem, for his conception of creation is that of "intellective intuition," in which G.o.d as subject is necessary to the existence of the world as object, but the world, from this standpoint, is equally necessary to G.o.d.

There is no way of pa.s.sing, then, from an absolute One to the Many, from singularism to pluralism. We must start with Babel and achieve, if we can, "one language and one speech." In its modern form Pluralism is a revolt alike from nineteenth century Absolutism, which was the dominant school in Germany and England, and from the Naturalism brought to the fore by the advance of scientific research, and interpreting mind in terms of nature. Pluralism has been called a means of escape alike from "Naturalism's desert and the barren summit of the Absolute." The ancient pluralism took the form of atomism, but the concourse of atoms may account for rigidity and uniformity but not for spontaneity. The modern type of pluralism, starting at the level of self-consciousness, posits a mult.i.tude of monads or individuals acting towards self-conservation and self-realization, and can, it is believed, do full justice alike to law and contingency, to spontaneity and fixity. The pluralist, operating on the principle of continuity, a.s.sumes that there are conscious individuals or monads in various degrees lower than man down to the minimal point of complete unconsciousness; and higher consciousnesses than man up to a being who may be called in a sense supreme, but is never more than one of the many, not inclusive of them, and, however exalted, is never more than _primus inter pares_.

The modern pluralist as described by Ward is a "pampsychist"; he believes that all existence is soul-like. There is a multiplicity of soul-like beings of various grades of development, some dominating, some serving, "conative and cognitive individuals bent on self-conservation and seeking the good."[180] All existence is soul-like, although, in what we call inorganic matter, these cognitive and conative monads have been largely "denatured" and reduced to the semblance of mechanism and routine. They have become "finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark."

180: "The Realm of Ends," 1911, p. 223.

The pluralist a.s.sumes at the outset a multiplicity of soul-like beings; but he cannot explain satisfactorily their inter-action, or their action towards a common end. If, indeed, a pluralistic standpoint were hopelessly infected with contradictions, as the Eleatics might hold, then "the way to theism would be hopelessly barred; for from pluralism speculation really always has and always must begin."[181] Pluralism begins with the many and ends with the many. But did it really begin at the beginning, and does it really reach the end? Pluralism, Ward insists, "points both theoretically and practically [and both forward and backward] beyond itself."[182]

181: "The Realm of Ends," p. 224.

182: _Ibid._, p. 436.

Following Ward in his transition from pluralism to theism, we notice: (1) The pluralist stops with "the totality of a Many in their inter-action regarded as the ultimate reality." But this position "is incomplete and unsatisfying. A plurality of beings primarily independent as regards their existence and yet always mutually acting and reacting upon each other, an ontological plurality that is somehow a cosmological unity, seems clearly to suggest some ground beyond itself. The idea of G.o.d presents itself to meet this lack." But this idea of G.o.d would be meaningless "unless G.o.d were regarded as transcending the Many; so there can be no talk of G.o.d as merely _primus inter pares_."[183] There can be no democratic idea of G.o.d, for by its very nature the idea of G.o.d implies something unique and incomparable and sovereign. The existence of the Many then looks back to the existence of the One as ground or creator.

183: "The Realm of Ends," p. 241.

The pluralistic view, then, does not, apart from theism, make a unified world; a pluralistic universe is in fact a contradiction in terms. Such a unifying conception as theism affords answers to the subject in relation to the manifold objects of experience; in fact it is doubtful if an absolute pluralism is a possible conception since we never know of the Many apart from the One. Theism, again, in its doctrine of a dominant monad and a supreme world spirit, is in agreement with the generalizations of science. All theories of the derivation of finite spirits, whether evolutionist, creationist, or traducian, agree in deriving the Many from the One.

(2) The cooperation of the Many also points in the direction of the One if, as is generally a.s.sumed, this cooperation is towards any common goal. The cooperation, it may be said, is due to chance, a fortuitous concourse of purposes; but if there is a tendency to one end, the question is inevitable, Why should the Many tend towards one end unless they had in the One their source? Theism is reached as the alternative of supposing that the inter-actions of the Many are a mere welter of happenings without meaning or purpose. Evolution and history show an increase of complexity and cooperation, and if all things work together it is natural to believe that all things work together for good. "The G.o.d who knows all loves all," and only the immanence of G.o.d in the world as defined by theism can give a.s.surance that the pluralist's ideal will be fulfilled.[184] Apart from theistic belief there would be no reason to expect progress on the whole, for "a world entering upon a fresh evolution cannot start where it left off and may even begin in less favourable conditions than before." "In a word, without such spiritual continuity as theism alone seems able to ensure, it looks as if a pluralistic world were condemned to a Sisyphean task. _Per aspera ad astra_ may be its motto, but _facilis descensus Averno_ seems to be its fate."[185]

184: "The Realm of Ends," pp. 229 f.

185: _Ibid._, pp. 214 f.

Further (3) theism enriches and enhances the pluralist's ideal by all the ineffable blessedness that the presence of G.o.d must yield. To sum up: "The theoretical demand for the ground of the world, then, as well as the practical demand for the good of the world, is met by the idea of G.o.d."[186] As related to the Many the One is the "ultimate source of their being and ultimate end of their ends."[187]

186: "The Realm of Ends," p. 423.

187: _Ibid._, p. 442.

2. While Ward is a Platonist alike in his belief in immortality and in connecting that belief with the doctrines of the preexistence and transmigration of souls, his general argument for a future life follows the more usual lines. It is based upon both rational and moral grounds and expressed with unusual beauty and power.

Man's native capacities and preeminently the moral law within him point far beyond any ability he has in the present life, and it is to be a.s.sumed, with Kant, that "no organ, no faculty, no impulse, in short nothing superfluous or disproportionate to its use, and therefore aimless, is to be met with."[188] Against a continuance of life there are no valid objections to be raised. We cannot prove a negative, and the burden of proof rests with those who deny its possibility. The immortality of influence or of the race cannot be subst.i.tuted for personal immortality. If humanity or society is an end in itself, "then the persons who const.i.tute it must share in this end."[189] "The wearisome procession of generation after generation of mortals in pursuit of an _ignis fatuus_, all hoping, all working for what none attain, might divert a Mephistopheles but would certainly not be a realm of ends."[190]