Religious Perplexities Part 1

Religious Perplexities.

by L. P. Jacks.

_A Foreword_

The substance of this little book was delivered in the form of two lectures given at the invitation of the Hibbert Trustees in Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham during March and April, 1922. On revising the spoken word for the press I have made certain rearrangements which seemed to be required in committing the lectures to the printed form. The first section is wholly new and may be considered as a short introduction to the main theme. Such an introduction is, I think, needed, but the time at my disposal did not allow of its inclusion in the oral delivery of the lectures.

L. P. J.

_I_

_The Source of Perplexity_

The first and greatest of religious perplexities, the source of all the rest, arises in the mysterious fact of our existence as individual souls. Our perplexities spring from the very root of life. Why are we here at all?

Did we but know the purpose for which we are present in the world, should we not have in our hands the key to all the questions we raise about G.o.d, freedom, duty and immortality? But if we know not why we are here how can we hope to answer these other questions?

Or again, if we were forced to acknowledge that our existence has no purpose at all, would it not be futile to embark on inquiries concerning G.o.d, freedom, duty and immortality? What meaning could these terms have for beings who had learnt that their own existence was purposeless?

The Westminster Confession affirms that the true end of man is "To glorify G.o.d and to enjoy him for ever." A splendid saying! But might not G.o.d be better glorified, and more fully enjoyed, if the particular soul inhabiting my own body, with all its errors and defects, had not been suffered to appear upon the scene? Might not another soul, sent into the universe instead of mine, have played that part infinitely better than I can ever hope to do? Why, then, among the host of possibilities, did the lot fall upon _me_? Why _me_? Why _you_?

Why should G.o.d need to be glorified, or enjoyed, by you, by me, by anyone? Why should he need anything? If, as some affirm, the universe is the dwelling-place of the All Perfect, what reason can be given for the existence, side by side with that All Perfect one, or within him, of a mult.i.tude of imperfect images of his Perfection--like you and me?

In the presence of One who has all purposes already fulfilled in himself what purpose can be served by our introduction into the scheme of things? If you and I, and all such, were to be blotted out forthwith and the All Perfect left in sole possession of the universe, where would be the loss? You and I are apparently superfluous.

Philosophers, both ancient and modern, have addressed themselves to this problem, not altogether, I think, without success, and yet not quite successfully. Their arguments have not removed but greatly deepened the mystery of our existence, bringing it to a critical point where we must either accept it or run away from life and its perils--to the point, in fact, where we must choose between life and death. If we choose life we accept the risk that its burden may prove too heavy for us. If death, we escape the perils of life but forfeit our share in its victories.

The former is the heroic choice; the latter the cowardly. As Carlyle was never tired of repeating, the ultimate question which every man has to face and answer for himself is this: "Wilt thou be a hero or a coward?" No philosophy can relieve us from the responsibility of having to make that choice. All that philosophy can do, and it is a great thing to accomplish even this, is to bring us to the point where we see that the choice has to be made. This it does by forcing us to raise the question: "Why am I here? For what end have I been sent into the world?"

But let us inquire more closely what philosophers have done by way of bringing us to this point--the point where a final decision between heroism and cowardice becomes inevitable.

To the argument that _we_ are superfluous, that with a Perfect G.o.d in possession of the universe no reason can be given why imperfect beings should be here at all, the philosophers make reply that the One must needs "differentiate itself into a Many," the Eternal Consciousness "reproduce itself" in a mult.i.tude of time-bound mortals like you and me, troublers of the Divine Perfection, which is all the more clearly perfect because it suffers and at last overcomes the trouble that our presence creates.

But while reasons have been offered why the One should thus "reproduce"

or "differentiate" itself as a Many, no reason, so far as I am aware, has ever been found, nor ever can be, why there should be just so many of these troublers as there are--no more and no less. Nor why _you_ and _I_ should be among them. To explain why human units exist, does not explain the existence of any single individual we choose to name--of Julius Caesar, of Napoleon, of Mr Lloyd George, whose significance in the universe, it will be admitted, consists not in their being mere human units required to make up a certain number, but in their being just the kind of men they happen to be. So too the proof that a human unit must needs be there to fill the niche in time and s.p.a.ce you now occupy is no proof that you, and no other, must needs be the unit in question. Another, subst.i.tuted in your place, could play the part of one in a mult.i.tude as well as you, and the theory of the One and the Many would not even notice the change. But it would make a notable difference to the facts. And as with the units, so with the totality. If the number of souls now drawing the breath of life were halved or doubled, nay, if they were all suddenly blotted out and their places filled by an entirely new mult.i.tude, men, angels or devils as the case might be, philosophy might still maintain its theory of the One and the Many as though nothing had happened. Why these rather than those? Why _you_? Why _me_? Philosophy precipitates this question and leaves it, at the end of all theorizing, unanswered, poignant and tremendous. "Who can say positively," writes Sir Leslie Stephen, "that it would not be better for the world at large if his neck were wrung five minutes hence?"[1]

Unable, as every man is, to give a convincing reason why he should be here at all, or why, being here, he should remain here any longer,--unable to prove that it would not be better for the world at large, if all necks, his own included, were wrung five minutes hence--is there not something fundamentally irrational in our determination to continue in existence as long as we possibly can--that universal will-to-live, which forms the basis of all particular volitions, and supplies the motive power to our plans, purposes, preparations and policies for our own or others' good? Challenged to show cause why we should linger here a moment longer, what answer could any of us give that would have the slightest claim to "the universal validity of reason"? Reason cannot be bullied into acquiescence by the importance of individuals in their own eyes. Was there ever a great man whose sudden extinction would not have been hailed with joy by a considerable section of his contemporaries, or a little one who would not have made things pleasanter for somebody by taking himself off?

If we limit the word "rational" to the processes of thought which issue in demonstrations after the manner of mathematical arguments, and if all behaviour is to be termed irrational which involves the taking of a risk, I see no escape from the conclusion that human life is infected with irrationality at its very core. So far as any of us act upon the a.s.sumption that it is better for us to exist than not to exist we are a.s.suming what can never be "proved."

But, for my own part, I am not prepared to put these limitations on the word "rational." The traditional logic of the schools, on which this notion of rationality is founded, turns out on examination to cover no more than a departmental activity of the human mind. The type of conclusion to which it leads us is determined in advance by the rules it lays down for its own procedure, in the one department where such procedure is possible. Free activity, which is the essence of self-consciousness, and the life of all creative work, lies entirely outside its province, and the attempt to deal with it by departmental rules yields nothing but the rank absurdity that freedom itself is absurd.[2] The logic in question may be compared to a locomotive engine which can move only on the rails that have been laid down for it; and the philosopher who would apprehend the things of the spirit by the means which it affords him is like a man who rides an engine rather than a horse when he goes to hunt a fox. Logical machinery cannot follow the movement of the live spirit, nor arrest it even for a moment's inspection. Within its own province the rule of the traditional logic is, indeed, absolute. But to make that province co-extensive with the realm of truth, to extend the laws which govern it into the universal laws of spirit is a fatal pedantry. So extended, our logic leads not to truth but to falsehood and, ultimately, to the paralysis of the very thought it seeks to regulate, nay, to the extinction of thought itself. This procedure has no claim whatever to usurp the name of "reason," but rather stands condemned as the very type of what is unreasonable. Let those who deny this prove, if they can, in terms acceptable to universal reason, that it would "not be better for the world at large if their necks were wrung five minutes hence."

There is a coward and a hero in the breast of every man. Each of the pair has a "logic" of his own adapted to his particular purpose and aim--which is safety for the coward and victory for the hero. The two are perpetually at variance, the reason of the one being the unreason of the other, the truth of the one being the falsehood of the other.

The inner strife, the division in our nature, the law in our members warring against the law of our mind, on which so many great doctrines of religion have hinged, has its origin at this point. Anyone who watches himself narrowly may observe the strife going on, and going on in just this form,--as an argument between the coward within him, who is out for safety, and the hero within him, who is out for victory.

They have little common ground and can barely understand each other's speech.

Everything the hero proposes is unreasonable to the coward. Everything the coward proposes is detestable to the hero. The hero would pour spikenard on the head of his beloved--that would be victorious. The coward would sell it and give the money to the poor--that would be "safer." The coward sees a danger in having children and limits his family. The hero would have many sons. On all such points the coward, judged by the standard of what pa.s.ses muster as logic, is a better reasoner than the hero. But the hero, though he has less to say for himself, when brought before the seat of judgment, is nearer to the fountain head of Reason. Would not the offence of the Cross, submitted at the time to a sanhedrim of "logical" experts, have been condemned as unadulterated folly? Such a sanhedrim is always in session within a man, and the hero has much ado to stand up to its decrees.

Religion is a power which develops the hero in the man at the expense of the coward in the man. As the change proceeds there comes a moment when the cowardly method of reasoning, with its eye on safety, ceases to dominate the soul. At the same moment the heroic element awakes and looks with longing towards the dangerous mountain-tops. Thenceforward the man's reason becomes the organ of the new spirit that is in him, no longer fettered to the self-centre, but mounting up with wings as an eagle. His powers as a reasoner are enriched, his survey of the facts more comprehensive, his insight into their significance more penetrating.

Religion has sometimes been represented as introducing a new faculty called "faith" into the man's life, as adding this faith to the reason he had before, or perhaps as driving reason out and putting faith in its place. This is a misconception. Faith is neither a subst.i.tute for reason nor an addition to it. Faith is nothing else than reason grown courageous--reason raised to its highest power, expanded to its widest vision. Its advent marks the point where the hero within the man is getting the better of the coward, where safety, as the prime object of life, is losing its charm and another Object, hazardous but beautiful, dimly seen but deeply loved, has begun to tempt the awakened soul.

Another way of saying the same thing is to name religion the "new birth" of the soul. But a new birth which, while changing all the rest of the man, left his reason unchanged, which turned all the rest of him into a hero, but kept him still reasoning with a coward's logic, would not amount to very much. Unless I am mistaken the new birth must begin in the seat of reason if it is to begin at all. Is not the man's reason the very essence of the man? How then, can he be converted at all unless he is converted there?

Most of the "defences of religion" that I am acquainted with ignore all this. They claim to address themselves to reason. And so indeed they do, but to reason in a low stage of its development, to the half-born reason of the timid and unemanc.i.p.ated soul, to the unheroic side of human nature, treating us as beings whose ultimate interest is to save our own skins, and making use of the logic, admirable on its own field, which self-interest has worked out for that very purpose and which is incapable of reaching any other conclusion. Instead of raising reason to the full-grown stature of religion, they bring religion down to the level of reason while still at the stage of learning the alphabet of its business. To this cla.s.s of argument belong Locke's "proof" of the existence of G.o.d, and Paley's of a Beneficent Designer. These argue as though the search for G.o.d were like the search for a lost key or for an invisible carpenter. To the same cla.s.s may be a.s.signed a more modern type of apologia, which accommodates religion to the supposed demands of physical science, or equates the Kingdom of Heaven with social reform, or domesticates the eternal values to the service of temporal utility, or harmonizes G.o.d with democracy, or with whatever else may be the popular obsession of the moment--all of them based on the principle of making concessions to the unconverted reason of carnal men, thereby sacrificing the higher logic of the spirit to the lower logic of the senses.

These constructions have no continuance. A slight s.h.i.+fting in the point of view, a new "demand" from science, a step forward (or backward) in the higher criticism, a change in the prevalent political obsession, a fit of sickness in democratic aspiration, and down they all go under a breath of the logic that created them, the modernism of to-day becoming the obscurantism of to-morrow. Then the work of accommodation must begin afresh; new concessions are offered to "reason," with the result that rebellious criticism breaks out at another point. Or the cry is raised, by desperate men, that religion is not an affair of the "head" but of the "heart"--as though a religion in which the "head" and the "heart" were at variance could be anything else than a fatal disease of the soul. And may not these apostles of the "heart" be reminded that their proposal to exclude the "head" from the pale of religion has neither force nor meaning until the "head"

itself has ratified the bargain and consented to its own exclusion?

Which the "head" is not likely to do.

If, then, we are to limit the word "reason" to that side of us to which the aforesaid logic makes its approach, we should realize from the outset that none of us can adduce the faintest shadow of reason why he should exist at all, or why, in Sir Leslie Stephen's words, it were not better for the world at large if his neck were wrung five minutes hence. Indeed, if the half-born logic of the unconverted reason is to rule our actions, I am inclined to think that the advice to commit universal suicide would be at least as "logical" as any other that philosophy could tender to the human race at the present moment.

But the advice would not be accepted. Rightly or wrongly each one of us insists on regarding his own existence as a fact of some significance--insists on believing that, on the whole, it is better for him to be here than not to be here. However firmly we may be convinced that the One has done its duty when it has differentiated itself into a Many, there is none of us who would take lightly to the proposal that he, John Smith, as one of the Many, should forthwith be blotted out, and another, Wong Fu, placed in the gap left vacant by his disappearance. To most of us, I believe, nay to all, it does make an enormous difference whether the particular niche in question is filled by Wong Fu or by _me_, but a difference for which we should find it extremely difficult to give a "logical" account.

In my youth I was much in contact with a group of excellent Christians who held that the number of the "saved" had been definitely fixed by divine pre-ordination, the extremists placing it as low as 40,000. But looking back on those times I now see that the ardour with which we believed these things was strictly relevant to the hope each of us entertained that he himself might be included in the number aforesaid.

I am very sure that our faith would have collapsed immediately had the revelation been made that the elect were composed exclusively of converted Chinamen. Our conception of the One and the Many was not so disinterested or abstract as to exclude ourselves from a fair chance of having a share in whatever good things happened to be going.

And so it always is, even where more enlightened philosophies prevail.

The significance of the universe, whatever it may be, is, ultimately, its significance for _me_; which is another way of saying that I attach importance to the fact that just I, and n.o.body else, am here to perceive the significance.

There are certain forms of mysticism, mostly Indian, which would wean us from all this. They would delete the value which the soul perceives in being just this soul and no other. But I am very sure they do not succeed. Whatever fascination the thought of being absorbed into the Infinite may have for me depends on my keeping it in mind that it is I, and not somebody else, who is being absorbed. "To be interested in one's finite self to the point of wanting to get rid of it is to have a high sense of one's own importance." A divine egoism is here indicated which the subject of religion shares with the Object. "_I_ am the Lord thy G.o.d. Thou shalt have no other G.o.d but _me_."

In describing the value a man finds in his own existence as illogical, as a thing for which no reason can be given, I am referring to logic and reason as they are understood in the schools and made use of in the superficial war of minds, the lower logic and the lower reason of the unconverted or unheroic mind. But, illogical though it be in that construction, I nevertheless regard it--this value which each man finds in his being the man he is--as the growing point of the higher logic which, when fully born, reveals the Kingdoms of the Real. This is the root of the intuition of value, the first point of contact between the human mind and the things that are eternal, Beauty, Goodness and Truth.

Morally it takes the form of courage, which is the foundation of virtue. In a world where no reason can be given why _this_ soul should exist at all, _this_ soul nevertheless resolves to _create_ a reason by its own valour, in the sure and certain faith that the universe, indifferent to the coward, will be friendly to the hero, will respond to his effort, will lend him its own creative energy, and bring him at last, in fellows.h.i.+p with the Divine Spirit which first prompted his attempt, to the haven where he would be.

The life of this heroic spirit is religion in being. But can we go further and name it Christianity? I think we can. It is to the heroic spirit, waiting in all of us for the Divine summons which shall call it from death to life, that the figure of Christ, dominating the ages, makes its great appeal. But of this more hereafter.

[1] _A Bad Five Minutes in the Alps_.

[2] See an article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for April 1922 by Howard V.

Knox, "Is Determinism Rational?"

_II_

_Religious Perplexity in General_

There is such a thing as the will-to-disbelieve. It is impervious to all appeals. No reason so cogent can be given for believing in the reality of anything but that human ingenuity, egged on by the will-to-disbelieve, can find some means of casting doubt upon it.