Theology and the Social Consciousness Part 5

The justifiable elements in mysticism, then, may be said to include: the insistence on the legitimate place of feeling in religion as a real and vital experience; the emphasis on one's own conviction and faith; the real difficulty of expressing the full meaning of the religious experience; the demand for a complete ethical surrender to G.o.d; and the faith in the real unity and worth of the world in G.o.d.

Now if one tries to bring together these justifiable elements in mysticism, the truly mystical may all be summed up as simply a protest in favor of the whole man--the entire personality. It says that men can experience and live and feel and do much more than they can logically formulate, define, explain, or even fully express. Living is more than thinking.

2. _The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man._--The element to which mysticism has tried most to do justice is feeling, and so it has been liable to a new and dangerous one-sidedness. But the truly mystical must be a protest alike against a narrow juiceless intellectualism, against a narrow moralistic rigorism, and against a blind and spineless sentimentalism. It is a protest particularly against making the mathematico-mechanical view of the world the only view; against making logical consistency the sole test of truth or reality; against ignoring all data, except those which come through the intellect alone; that is, against trying to make a part, not the whole, of man the standard; in other words, against ignoring the data which come through feeling and will--emotional, aesthetic, ethical, and religious data, as well as those judgments of worth which underlie reason's theoretical determinations.

Man stands, in fact, everywhere face to face with an actual world of great complexity, that seems to him at first what James says the baby's world is, "one big blooming buzzing confusion;" "and the universe of all of us is still to a great extent such a confusion, potentially resolvable, and demanding to be resolved, but not yet actually resolved, into parts."[39] In one sense, man's whole task is to think unity and order into this confusion. The problem really becomes that of thinking the universe through in several kinds of terms, and then finally bringing all together into one comprehensive view. All these are alike ideals which the mind sets before itself.

The easiest of these problems is the attempt to think the world through, in mathematico-mechanical terms. But the attempt to think the world through in aesthetic or ethical or religious terms is equally legitimate, though it is more difficult. Not only, then, is the mathematico-mechanical view not the sole justifiable view, but it really has its justification in an ideal, and success in this attempt affords just encouragement for the hope of success in the other more difficult problems.[40]

The truly mystical holds, then, that the narrow intellectualism is unwarranted, because natural science, the mechanical view of the world, is itself an ideal--the "child of duties," as Munsterberg calls it--and so cannot legitimately rule out other ideals; because we have just as immediate a conviction concerning the worth, as concerning the logical consistency of the world; because a narrow intellectualism would make conscious life but a "barren rehearsal" of the outer world, without significance; because if we can trust the indications of our intellect, we ought to be able to trust the indications of the rest of our nature; and because, thus, the only possible key and standard of truth and reality are in ourselves--the whole self, and "necessities of thought" become necessities of a reason which means loyally to take account of all the data of the entire man.

And the same point may be thus stated. We use the word rational in two quite distinct senses: in the narrow sense, as meaning simply the intellectual; in the broad sense, as indicating the demands of the entire man. The true mysticism stands for the broadly rational.

So, too, we speak of the necessary fundamental a.s.sumption of the honesty or sincerity of the world; but this includes two quite distinct propositions: one, that the world must be thinkable, conceivable, construable, a logically consistent whole, a sphere for rational thinking,--where the test is consistency; the other, that the world must be worth while, must not mock our highest ideals and aspirations, must in some true and genuine sense satisfy the whole man, be a sphere for rational living,--where the test is worth. All our arguments go forward upon these two a.s.sumptions. Now, a true mysticism contends that the second principle is as rational as the first, though it must be freely granted that it is not as easy to employ it for detailed conclusions, and it is consequently much more liable to abuse. The true mysticism wishes to be not less, but more, rational. It knows no shorthand subst.i.tute for the hard and steady thinking of the philosopher, or for the historical experience of the prophet; it needs and uses both.

In all this, it is plain that the truly mystical is a legitimate outgrowth of the emphasis of the social consciousness upon recognition of the entire personality. Phillips Brooks finds just this in the intellectual life of Jesus. "The great fact concerning it is this," he says, "that in him the intellect never works alone. You never can separate its workings from the complete operation of the entire nature. He never simply knows, but always loves and resolves at the same time."[41]

3. _The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion._--Moreover, it probably may be fairly claimed that all of the mystical recognition of the emotional which is valuable or even legitimate, is preserved, and far more safely and sanely conceived, in a strictly personal conception of religion. It may well be doubted, if it is possible in any other way, both to do justice to feeling in religion, and at the same time to keep feeling in its proper place. Is it possible briefly to indicate both the recognition of emotion and the control of emotion in religion?

The true mysticism recognizes that the supreme joy is "joy in personal life"--joy in entering into the revelation of a person; and it believes with reason that a growing acquaintance with G.o.d must have such heights and depths of meaning as no other personal relation can have. It is not, therefore, afraid or distrustful of true emotion--of joy or peace, of intense longing or of keen satisfaction--in the religious life.

But the true mysticism knows at the same time that deep revelation of a person is made only to the reverent, that the conditions are in the highest degree ethical, and above all must be recognized to be so in religion. It does view, then, with deep distrust an emotional emphasis in religion that ignores the ethical. It cannot forget that Christ thought that everything must be tested by its fruits in life. Paul, too, insisted on applying the test of an active ministering love to the highly valued emotional experiences of the Corinthians; and writes to the Galatians that there is but one infallible proof of the working of the Spirit in them--a righteous life: "love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance."

And a true mysticism knows that the spirit, reverent of personality, leads to a self-restraint that does not seek the emotional experience simply as such on _any_ conditions; but, knowing the supreme psychological conditions of happiness and character and influence, it loses itself in an unselfish love and in absorbing work, and understands that it must simply let the experiences come. It will have nothing, therefore, to do with strained emotion, or with the working up of feeling for its own sake. It seeks health, not merely the signs of health. It prizes, therefore, the joy that simply proclaims itself as the sign of the normal life and so positively strengthens and cheers, but it will have nothing of the strain of emotion which is drain.

It is interesting to notice that it is exactly this true psychological att.i.tude concerning the emotional life that Phillips Brooks believed that he found perfectly reflected in Jesus. "The sensitiveness of Jesus to pain and joy," he says, "never leads him for a moment to try to be sad or happy with direct endeavor; nor, is there any sign that he ever judges the real character of himself or any other man by the sadness or the happiness that for the moment covers his life. He simply lives, and joy and sorrow issue from his living, and cast their brightness and their gloominess back upon his life; but there is no sorrow and no joy that he ever sought for itself, and he always kept a self-knowledge underneath the joy or sorrow, undisturbed by the moment's happiness or unhappiness."[42]

How far from this objectivity and this healthful emotional life is the atmosphere of most of our devotional books, and, one might say, of all the manuals of ordinary mysticism! That this difficulty should confront us in devotional literature is very natural; for such writing commonly aims to give the emotional sense of reality in religion; and is, therefore, particularly under the temptation to show and to produce a straining after the emotion, as for its own sake. Moreover, the very introspection, almost inevitably involved in the reading and writing of devotional books, tends to bring about an artificial change in the religious experience, and so to introduce into it the abnormal.

But the social consciousness, so far as it affects religion, not only tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the personal, and so to keep the truly mystical, but it is even more plain that it must tend to insist upon the ethical in religion.

[35] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 201 ff.

[36] _Op. cit._, pp. 210 ff.

[37] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 307.

[38] James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 294, 295.

[39] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 16.

[40] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, 633-677; especially 633, 634, 667, 671, 677; Munsterberg, _Psychology and Life_, pp. 23-28.

[41] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 219.

[42] _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 156.

CHAPTER VII

_THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION_

I. THE PRESSURE OF THE PROBLEM

The social consciousness looks to the thorough ethicizing of religion. If the social consciousness is to be regarded as historically justified, it must believe that this growing sense of brotherhood and consequent obligation is simply our response to the on-working of G.o.d's own plan, G.o.d's own will expressing itself in us.

The purpose to recognize the will of G.o.d, thus necessarily involves the recognition of human relations, since, as soon as conscience is strongly stirred in any direction, religion can but feel, in this demand of conscience, the demand of G.o.d, and, therefore, must bring the convictions of the social consciousness into religion. Indeed, it may be well believed that Kaftan is right in his insistence that it is exactly through the practical, that is, in the realm of the ethical, that knowledge arises from faith.[43]

In any case, it is evident that the old problem of faith and works, of religion and ethics, of the first and second commandments, meets us here in a way not to be put aside. With an ethical demand so insistent as that of the social consciousness no religion can be at peace that is not with equal insistence ethical. We are bound, then, to show how communion with G.o.d, the supreme desire to find G.o.d, necessarily carries with it active love for men. We must show how we truly commune with G.o.d in such active service. The social consciousness, thus, positively thrusts upon every religious man, who believes in it, the problem of the thorough ethicizing of religion. Or, to put the matter in a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the sacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions of our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this conviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to us. This is the problem.

II. THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

All will probably agree that religion is communion with G.o.d. We have seen why the social consciousness cannot accept a falsely mystical view of that communion. For similar reasons, it must make absolutely subordinate all non-ethical and simply mysterious means which make no appeal to the conscience and to the reason--the falsely sacramental.

Only the person is truly sacramental. Much else may be of value, but the touch of personal life is the only absolute essential in religion.

We have seen, also, why the social consciousness tends to regard religion as a strictly personal relation.

Our problem thus becomes: How does the desire for personal relation with G.o.d, the desire for G.o.d himself, lead directly into the ethical life--into the full and practical recognition of the ethical demands of the social consciousness?

To guard against any possible misconception, it is, perhaps, well to say at the start that the desire for a personal relation with G.o.d has no purpose of returning by another route to the false position of mysticism, in the claim of special private revelations that are exclusively for it. It expects, rather, personal conviction of that great revelation that is common to all, and, moreover, it knows well that no personal relation is essentially sensuous, and it certainly looks for no sensuous relation to G.o.d.

It may be worth while, too, to reverse our question for a moment, and ask how morality necessarily involves religion. The true moral life is the fulfilment of all personal relations, and as such can least of all omit the greatest and most fundamental relation which gives being and meaning and value to all the rest--the relation to G.o.d. The fully moral life, therefore, must include religion. The unity of the two may be thus seen.

But the present inquiry looks at the matter from the other side, and seeks a careful and thoroughgoing answer to the question: Why is the Christian religion, as a personal relation to G.o.d, necessarily ethical?

III. THE ANSWER

1. _Involved in Relation to Christ._--In the first place, then, it probably may be safely claimed that there is no test of the moral life of a man so certain as his att.i.tude toward Christ. Setting aside, now, any special religious claims of Christ altogether, and recognizing him only as earth's highest character, the supreme artist in living, who knows the secret of the moral life more surely and more perfectly than any other, he becomes even so the surest touch-stone of character; and the iron filings will not be more certainly attracted to the magnet than will the men of highest character be attracted to Christ when he is really seen as he is. There is no test of character so certain as the test of one's personal relation to the best persons. The personal att.i.tude toward Christ is the supreme test. In receiving him, in becoming his disciples in a completer sense than we own ourselves the disciples of any other, we make the supreme moral choice of our lives; and, if no more is true than has been already said, we so accept as a matter of fact the fullest historical revelation of G.o.d at the same time. The ethical and religious here fall absolutely together. And all the subsequent choices of our Christian life, if true to Christ, are necessarily moral.

2. _The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command._--In the second place, the sense of the presence of G.o.d, of the divine will laid upon us, if we have the religious feeling at all, comes to us nowhere in our common life so certainly and so persistently as in a sense of obligation which we cannot shake off, a sense of facing a clear duty.

To run away from this, we are made to feel, is plainly to run away from G.o.d. Is this not a simply true interpretation of the common consciousness? Here, then, the religious experience is in the very sphere of the ethical, and identical with it.

3. _Involved in the Nature of G.o.d's Gifts._--Again, G.o.d's gifts in religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul; just to receive them, therefore, implies willingness to use them; and faith becomes inevitably both "a gift and an activity." However one names G.o.d's gifts in religion, so long as the relation is kept a spiritual one at all, receiving the gift requires a real ethical att.i.tude in the recipient. A real forgiveness, for example, involves personal reconciliation, restored personal relations; and reconciliation is mutual. One cannot, then, be said in any true sense to accept forgiveness from G.o.d who is not himself in an att.i.tude of reconciliation with G.o.d, of harmony of will with him. In the same way, peace with G.o.d, the gift of the Spirit, life, G.o.d's own life, cannot be really given to any man without an ethical response on his part in a definite att.i.tude of will. Anything arbitrary here is, therefore, necessarily shut out. G.o.d's gifts in religion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul. They are not things to be mechanically poured out on men. We have no need, consequently, to guard our religious statements in this respect. We cannot even receive from G.o.d the spiritual gifts of the religious relation without the active will. Here, too, religion is certainly ethical.

4. _Communion with G.o.d, through Harmony with His Ethical Will._--Or, one may say, desire for real communion with G.o.d seeks G.o.d himself, not things, or some experience merely. But the very center of personality is the will; any genuine seeking of G.o.d himself, therefore, to commune with him, requires unity with his ethical will. The deepest religious motive is at the same time, thus, an impulse to character.

5. _The Vision of G.o.d for the Pure in Heart._--Christ's own statement--"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see G.o.d"--suggests another aspect of this essential unity of the religious and the ethical. The connection in the beat.i.tude is no chance one. The highest and completest revelation of personality, human or divine, can be made only to the reverent. G.o.d reveals himself to the reverent soul, and most of all to the pure--to those souls that are reverent of personality throughout and under the severest pressure. Therefore, the pure in heart shall see G.o.d. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him."[44] The vision of G.o.d requires the spirit that is reverent of personality, and this spirit is the abiding source of the finest ethical living.

6. _Sharing the Life of G.o.d._--But perhaps the clearest and most satisfactory putting of the relation is this. The very meaning of religion is sharing the life of G.o.d. As soon, now, as G.o.d is conceived as essentially holy and loving, a G.o.d of character, a living will and not a substance--and Christianity to be true to itself, must always so conceive him--so soon religion and morality are indissolubly united.

G.o.d's life, according to Christ's teaching, is the life of constant and perfect self-giving. To share the life of G.o.d, therefore, to share his single purpose, is to come into the life of loving service. The two fall together from the point of view of the social consciousness.

And we are "saved," we come into the real religious life, only in the proportion in which we have really learned to love. "Everyone that loveth is begotten of G.o.d, and knoweth G.o.d."[45] The old separation of religion and character is impossible from this point of view.

7. _Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life._--But we may still profitably press the question: Is the Christian religion--the special faith in the revelation of G.o.d in Christ, the best way to righteousness? does it necessarily, most naturally, most spontaneously, and most joyfully carry righteousness of life with it?

If this is to be true, Christian faith, in Herrmann's language, "must give men the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty."[46] It may be doubted whether any one has dealt with this question as satisfactorily as Herrmann himself, and a few sentences may well be quoted from his discussion. "We know that the ordinary instinctive way in which men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes it impossible to submit honestly to the demands of duty, and we see, also, the falsity of the childish idea of the mystics that this instinct should be extirpated; it follows, then, that we can only seek moral deliverance in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving for life.... Now just such a feeling of perfect inner contentment is possible to the Christian, and he has it just in proportion as he understands that G.o.d turns to him in Christ.... This is redemption, that Christ creates within us a living joy, whose brightness beams even from the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a power it cannot comprehend. And the power that works redemption is the fact that in our world there is a Man whose appearance can at any moment be to us the mighty Word of G.o.d, s.n.a.t.c.hing us out of our troubles and making us to feel that he desires to have us for his own, and so setting us free from the world and from our own instinctive nature."[47]

Christ, that is, has no desire to withdraw himself from the test of the largest life. He is able to satisfy the highest demands for life.

He courts the trial. He claims to offer life, the largest life. "I came," he says, "that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."[48] His way of deliverance is not negative but positive, not limiting but fulfilling. He is able to give such largeness of life in himself, such inner satisfaction of the craving for life, as makes a lower life lose its power over us, the larger and higher life driving out the meaner and lower. This is positive victory, supplanting the lower with the higher; just as in literature, in music, in friendship, and in love, we expect the best to break down the taste for the lower.