Theology and the Social Consciousness Part 13

We may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value beyond that which we can now understand; and we may be a.s.sured that at least what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the richest life,[119] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the future life. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great centers of the life beyond must be a.s.sociation and work; though we may not know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both may deepen beyond our present conception. Steadily deepening personal relations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to G.o.d in Christ, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with joy, because it is G.o.d's work. This, at least, the future life will contain. We can hardly go farther with a.s.surance.

But perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to G.o.d. That G.o.d has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance, the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only another application of this same principle of reverence for the person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great joy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung suggestively calls "an apocalypse of Kipling." In Kipling's poem to Wolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees "the discovery of a religion, or a.s.signable and eternally rewardable relation to G.o.d, in those whose inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." Their spiritual life "serves G.o.d with the joy which comes of following and satisfying, in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "It is the religion of work and of daring." And "it is only in the open vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was unconsciously serving G.o.d all along, begins to come to the perception of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our Father's praise.'"

It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into G.o.d's own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door of hope, where G.o.d has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant the divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike.

"Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand."[120]

[92] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. x.

[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106.

[94] See especially Bowne, _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp.

239, 377, 378; James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 145 ff.

[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff

[96] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 241 ff.

[97] Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol. II, p. 626.

[98] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chaps. VI and VII.

[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the propositions briefly summarized in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book, because they fit so closely into the argument here.

[100] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 378.

[101] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249.

[102] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 209; and below, p. 209.

[103] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7.

[104] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.

[105] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 205 ff.

[106] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff.

[107] See _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chapter VI.

[108] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.

[109] See the fuller statement in the _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 96-108.

[110] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 483.

[111] _Outline of Christian Theology_, pp. 161, ff.

[112] _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 101.

[113] Cf. Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, pp.

434, 435.

[114] _Union with G.o.d_, p. 109.

[115] _The Communion of the Christian with G.o.d_, p. 143.

[116] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 464.

[117] _The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermons_, p. 197.

[118] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 467.

[119] See above, pp. 68 ff.

[120] Romans 14:4.