Theology and the Social Consciousness Part 10

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 a.s.sumptions 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sive 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 a.s.serting 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 a.s.sent; 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 G.o.d 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 repet.i.tion 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, is one. The best a.n.a.logy 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 G.o.d's self-revelation to us. It is, then, precisely in our Christian experience and in that personal relation to G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d_, 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 a.n.a.lyze 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d._--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 G.o.d, as should make impossible a true personality in man. It seeks, in its view of both G.o.d and man, a really "_personal_ idealism." It does not forget, but earnestly a.s.serts, the dependence of all other spirits upon G.o.d; and, consequently, looks for no metaphysical separateness in this sense from G.o.d. But a genuine recognition of the personality of man does require that man be conceived as separate from G.o.d 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 const.i.tute all of separateness that need be demanded for man. Possessing these, he is "outside of G.o.d" in the only sense in which a "personal idealism" feels concerned to a.s.sert 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 a.s.sumption 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 G.o.d. 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 superst.i.tion, 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 a.s.sumption of freedom."

Moreover, if real human initiative is denied to men, we conceive G.o.d 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 G.o.d. It degrades man, in denying to him a true personality, and so making him simply a thing. It degrades G.o.d, 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 G.o.d the most absolute guarding of man's personality, and especially of his moral initiative.

3. _Man, a Child of G.o.d._--The Christian faith, that man is a child of G.o.d, 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 G.o.d for his being and maintenance, and at the same time his infinite value and sacredness as a spirit made in the image of G.o.d, capable of indefinite progress, and capable of personal relation to G.o.d. It voices thus Christianity's characteristic "humbly-proud" conception of man--humble in view of the eternal and infinite plans of G.o.d; 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 G.o.d, 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.