The Next Step in Religion Part 8

CHAPTER XII

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL

It is noteworthy that there has never been a problem of good, but always a problem of evil. Man takes the good in his life for granted, while he bewails the presence of evil in all its forms. The Greeks had the myth of Pandora's box to account for the sorrows and ills which afflict the human race; the Hebrews told of the Fall of man from his original state of bliss to a life of toil and sin through the weakness of our first parents and the wiles of the Serpent; the Scandinavians sang of Loki, the Spirit of Deception, whose artful malice led to the death of Balder, the Beautiful. And Christianity has been accustomed to connect evil with a personal devil "who rushes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour." At his door, popular thought has lain those temptations and backslidings that bewilder poor humanity.

Even the more physical evils, such as famine, sickness and bodily injury, have been ascribed to his agency.

Is it necessary to say that primitive man thought of all evils as due to mysterious potencies which surrounded him on every hand? His ritual of purification corresponds to the signs which now surround electrical machinery. Irrational as many of these taboos were, they yet implied that the actual world was a strange mixture of favorable and unfavorable potencies to {154} which man had to adapt himself. "To the primitive mind nothing was more uncanny than blood, and there are people still who faint at the sight of it: for 'the blood is the life,'

life and death are the great primeval mysteries, and all the physical substances that are a.s.sociated with the inner principle of either partake of this mysteriousness." This early idea of a miasmic contagion slowly unites itself with the belief in demons, as animistic religion evolves. Bad demons work havoc, while favorable spirits bring blessings to the needy wors.h.i.+per.

But, as religion developed a more distinctly ethical and personal character, the existence of evil in the world became a problem. In the early days, it was not so much a problem as a fact. But a Jew who believed that Yahweh controlled everything that occurred in the Kingdom had to account for personal and social disasters in a rational way.

What was more natural than the hypothesis that those whom disasters overtook had been guilty of some secret wrong? And it was this point of view which was adopted. The Book of Job represents the puzzled reflection of a late period over the difficulty of squaring the hypothesis with the facts. And, so far as I can see, the puzzle is handled as well as it could be within the accepted setting. The whole treatment is deductive rather than inductive. a.s.sume an omnipotent, omniscient and ethically perfect deity, and it follows that, when facts do not square with your sense of justice, you must either suspect the individual of secret sins or proclaim that G.o.d's ways are past finding out. In other words, the search for a theodicy leads to agnosticism.

Since you don't really know anything about the world, one hypothesis is as good as {155} another. But agnosticism is a cheap way of establis.h.i.+ng a position, and is likely to suggest to the reflective that the whole setting of theodicy is at fault. If the religious view of the world leads to this _impa.s.se_, may it not be better to take a more inductive way of approach to what we call evil? May not reality be of such a character that evil is as natural as good?

When we glance a little more closely at the Christian tradition, we find that the popular answer to the problem of evil is by no means unambiguous. To explain the existence of evil by the agency of the devil (Satan, Ahriman) is a straightforward answer, quite in accordance with the appeal to personal agency so characteristic of religion, but it does not harmonize with the ethical monotheism which Christianity inherited. The query will not down, Why does this omnipotent and ethically perfect deity permit such a being to exist to work havoc amongst his children? Even upon a casual examination, it becomes evident that there are many strands of tradition and doctrine in Christianity. There is the cla.s.sic monotheism of the prophets, and the more polytheistic tendencies of later times, a contrast parallel to the sanity of cla.s.sic Greece as compared with the flabbiness of h.e.l.lenistic times.

In the New Testament, itself, there are many evidences of the acceptance of a dualistic view of the world. Satan is the Prince of this World. We have already pointed out that the writers of the gospels think of Jesus as casting out demons which have infested the bodies of men and women and made them sick. Yet, strange to say, we are told that not a sparrow falls to the ground without G.o.d's consent.

This dualistic strand of thinking dominated during {156} the Middle Ages. The world is given over to the devil for him to work his will upon it. Here we have both a cause and an effect of the pessimism of the times. For the early Christians, society was corrupt and filled with abominations; the only sure way to achieve salvation was to flee from its lure to deserts and monasteries, there to purge the soul of fleshly desires. No one has painted the situation more keenly and unflinchingly than Anatole France in _Thais_. Humanity was sick. A strong wave of asceticism spread from the East to the West and carried with it doctrines based on the metaphysical extension of the contrast between light and darkness, good and evil. Matter is evil in its very nature and leagues itself with those instincts in the soul which come from its contamination with flesh. The taint of original sin is deepened by the grossness of the material out of which man's earthly tabernacle is made. The body with its pa.s.sions plays double traitor to the soul. Only by prayer, purification, fasting, and the grace of G.o.d can the son of corruption save his soul alive for the heavenly kingdom among the stars.

The number of mythical elements woven into this ascetic dualism is striking. Woman was the temptress most to be feared; the daughters of Eve were considered the most powerful instruments Satan had at his command. It was even debated whether she had a soul. It was even whispered that a woman guarded the gates of h.e.l.l. Again, Satan was pictured as a demon leading the unwary astray by the desires of this world. Ethics was an affair of external fighting for the souls of men.

The whole setting was mythical and supernaturalistic and full of picture-thinking.

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We have already referred to the doctrine of original sin. This doctrine was taken up by St. Augustine who had been a Manichean.

Pauline theology, Augustinianism, and Manicheism have much in common.

They are all instances of what may be called mythological metaphysics.

The dogma is, that, left to his own devices, man tends to take the path of sin. He is, moreover, alienated from G.o.d, who, because of his perfection, cannot condone imperfection and demands an atonement which cannot be made by man himself. Hence, the need arises for a savior to mediate between man and G.o.d. What a construction is this in which myth, rabbinical theology and pagan dualistic cosmologies are drawn together to furnish the setting for a juridical drama! How can those who accept the teaching of modern science and realize the more subjective and personal spirit of modern ethics conserve any portion of this strange creation of past ages? The idea of evolution, as applied to both nature and man, undermines the whole fantastic drama. Man has arisen painfully from a brutish condition, instead of falling from a perfect state. The contrast between flesh and spirit can no longer be taken literally as corresponding to a sort of physical division of the universe into spheres of good and evil which can have no commerce with one another. This is ethical poetry which is not sufficiently aware that it is poetry. Instead of seeking to re-interpret the belief in an external, sacrificial savior, mediating between G.o.d and man in vague, mystically symbolic language which suggests a depth it does not possess, the sensible thing is to drop the whole outlook frankly, as outgrown, and as having essentially lost its meaning. We saw that Jesus, himself, would probably {158} not have comprehended its intricacies, and certainly would not have accepted it as true of his own mission. Instead, it represents the theosophic speculations of the Ancient World. So long as the thinker toys with these imaginative speculations which have no direct foundation in the knowledge and experience of to-day, so long will he live in a mental fog unable to see the really pressing social and ethical problems of the present.

When we once shake ourselves loose from these mythical, gnostic and rabbinical ideas, with their legal and poetical conceptions of ethics, and their nave picture of the world as the seat of ethical forces struggling in a physical way against one another; when we once realize that it is meaningless to apply ethical distinctions to matter, we are led to press past these h.e.l.lenistic accretions to the simpler and n.o.bler traditions which Christianity inherited from Jesus and the greater Hebrew prophets. Here, if anywhere, religion is in a position to solve the problem of evil. There are pa.s.sages in the New Testament which breathe the same faith as that held by Deutero-Isaiah, a sort of sublime religious optimism or will to believe. For the Hebrew prophet of the exile, G.o.d is the creator and righteous ruler of the earth. "I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and _create evil_; I am the Lord that doeth all these things." Such is monotheism of the creationalistic type in all its vigor and challenging fervor. Yet the prophet speaks and thinks in terms of world-movements and the fate of nations, and his thoughts scarcely drop from this vast setting to consider the fates of individuals. We should note further the absence of the poly-demonism {159} of later Judaism and the evident impatience with the ancient myths and the belief in a Satan or Spirit of Evil. Had Christianity taken its departure from this high alt.i.tude, it would have been more truly monotheistic, but it would not have been the child of its age, and would not have been a.s.similated by the Mediterranean peoples. Let us examine the implications of this bolder and simpler faith.

There can be little doubt that the position adopted by the second Isaiah is the logical terminus of monotheism. If G.o.d be omnipotent, he must be responsible for all the evil in the world as well as for the good. In other words, this must be the best of all possible worlds.

He who is a king, and not a marionette, cannot beg off from the duties of his station. To introduce Sin as a sort of h.e.l.lish ent.i.ty, as did Saint Augustine, is to mar our conception of deity. We no longer have that old Roman's courtier-like sycophancy, nor his nonchalance when others are condemned by divine caprice to the eternal flames. What was to him a means of manifesting G.o.d's greater glory is to us a crime which would sully our ideal of goodness. The educated world of to-day has at least come up to the level of the peasant-poet's indictment of the Calvinism of two centuries ago.

Christianity is on the horns of a terrible dilemma. It has long wavered between the bold att.i.tude of Isaiah, softened by such devices as apologetic ingenuity could invent, and the mythological dualism current at the time of its birth. G.o.d must be totally responsible for all physical evils, at least; or else he must be thwarted by something independent of himself, whether this be an evil spirit or matter. Now scholars have pointed out that the idea of a prolonged conflict between a {160} good and an evil power was characteristic of the Persian religion, and that this view tinged later Judaism and pa.s.sed over into Christianity. Here it was met and reenforced by Neo-Platonism in the form usually called Gnosticism and Manicheism. At present, the tide has turned in favor of monotheism and against the coexistence of an evil power. We are inclined to smile at a personal devil, perhaps because superst.i.tion has made him humorous, perhaps because we know better the seat and cause of what we call evil. Science has helped to do away with the devil; but, in so doing, has it not also undermined the idea of Providence? Must not the same arrow transfix an effective G.o.d that does away with an effective Devil?

The G.o.d of the past was a realistic G.o.d; he counted for everything in the governance of the universe. The G.o.d of modern theology is fast becoming an ideal of personality. When G.o.d is thought of as a tender-hearted and perfect gentleman, the question of evil takes the following form: Can we harmonize this conception with the facts of life? _Is G.o.d an agent or an ideal_? We must bear in mind the fact that G.o.d is an hypothesis characteristic of the religious view of the world, and that, like every other hypothesis, it should help to explain the facts to which it is relevant. But does it do this? Is it fruitful?

I am free to confess that theodicies of all sorts strike me as proofs of the inapplicability of the religious view of the world. Yet immense dialectical ability has been displayed in the tireless search for some satisfactory theory of G.o.d's relation to the universe. A glance at these theories reveals the working of the time-spirit. When man is harsh, his G.o.d is harsh and cruel. When {161} man is tender, his G.o.d is benevolent. And this correspondence does not complete the story.

In past ages, the political organization was autocratic and unyielding.

The subjects of the monarch did not dream of questioning the justice of his rule. It was not right for common men to think of such matters; it was out of their sphere of control and understanding. Besides, is not might the sanction of right? During these monarchial periods, G.o.d was thought of as a heavenly king whose power and glory and dominion was without end. This correspondence between the political organization and the theological picture betrays the sociological side of theology.

All of man's ideas are human ideas, and so his idea of his G.o.d and the very personality and moral outlook of that G.o.d reflect the social standards which are in force around the individual. If human justice is cruel, G.o.d's justice is strict and unyielding. What could be more natural than this parallelism? But as punitive justice yields to ideas of mercy and sympathy, a change comes over man's conception of this heavenly replica of his own sentiments and inst.i.tutions. Irrational punishment with its brutal terrors gives way to thoughts of lovingkindness.

But it is this very evolution of human morality which brings out the problem of evil in all its distinctness. Yahweh could command whole tribes to be slaughtered, and no one felt the least religious discomfort. But the man of to-day, when he allows himself to think, revolts against such heartlessness. G.o.d must be at least as merciful as man--and man would not do these things. Yet our experience tells us that pain and disaster are everywhere rampant in the world. How is it that an omnipotent and n.o.ble G.o.d permits these {162} things to be? The line of reasoning which leads to the demand for a theodicy is simple and direct. G.o.d is a moral agent who has this peculiarity, that he can do what he wills and is therefore responsible for all that happens.

But tragic things happen. Why did he permit them?

The various formulations of G.o.d's relation to the world turn about this problem. The inherent possibilities are few in number and are soon grasped and developed. If G.o.d is a limited deity, then evil can be a.s.signed to something else. If G.o.d is unlimited, then whatever is, is somehow right. Let us glance at typical developments of these two main lines of approach.

Mr. H. G. Wells has recently startled the general public by his advocacy of a struggling deity. It is not in accordance with Christian tradition, he admits, but it is truer to the facts as we know them.

But he might well have told the public that this view of his was not a new one. Long before the Christian era, the Zoroastrian Persians held just such a theory of a struggling deity combating the evil machinations of Ahriman. The faithful were exhorted to do all in their power to a.s.sist Ahura Mazda in his stern fight with darkness and contamination. This dualistic view found its way West and appears in Manicheism. It may not be well known, but it was this Manichean conception of the world that Saint Augustine gave up at his conversion to Christianity. Again and again, it found its way to the surface of Western society. Who has not heard of the Cathars or Albigenses of the Middle Ages? These people were believers in a struggling deity engaged with the powers of evil. Some of them identified the Jehovah of the Old Testament with this cruel {163} and malignant spirit. In so doing, they showed an absence of all historical perspective, but, also, a keen ethical judgment. This tribal G.o.d of the early Jews did not harmonize with their ideals of goodness and mercy. While theirs was a darker and more superst.i.tious outlook than an educated man of to-day would adopt, the logical basis of the system is essentially the same as the one which seems to be rising to the surface in our own times as a revolt against the smugness of traditional Christianity. The atmosphere of religion was more somber in the past; and these Cathars would have been shocked by the fine, careless rapture of the modern novelist; but they would have recognized that his view was akin to their own.

It may not be amiss to mention the fact that John Stuart Mill, the famous English philosopher of the middle of the nineteenth century, suggested that it would be truer to the experience of human beings to a.s.sume a G.o.d limited in power, though perfect in other respects. It is impossible, he thought, to harmonize the attributes of omnipotence and goodness in a divine agent, with the world as it is. This protest against the high, deductive faith of Christian monotheism was due to Mill's frank empiricism. Life must speak for itself, he held; it must justify hypotheses by their agreement with it. The traditional Christian method has been too dictatorial and too little inductive. It has started from a set of dogmas in regard to G.o.d and spun out their consequences, refusing to qualify these dogmas when the consequences did not fit the tragic character of life.

The treatment of the second logical possibility is familiar ground.

Christian ethical monotheism followed {164} Hebrew religious thought in its essentials. G.o.d is held to be an omnipotent agent who is also morally perfect. Theology knows two forms of this dogma, the Calvinistic or Augustinian, and the Arminian. Calvinism stands flatly on the thesis that G.o.d is just and that, therefore, what is done is just. Within this setting with its easy appeal to ignorance, it makes little difference whether events are right because G.o.d does them or whether G.o.d does them because they are right. Arminianism turns out, when examined, to be largely an attempt to soften the absolutism of Calvinism along certain lines. But these endless and, in the main, sterile theological controversies reveal the artificiality of the dogmas within which they are carried on. They are, when all is said, only ingenious modifications and redressings of the primary a.s.sumptions of the religious view of the world. I challenge any one to develop a really tenable system of theology, a system which is self-consistent and relevant to the world as we know it. I am certain that it cannot be done. As a student of ethics, my growing conviction has for some time been that these traditional controversies and modes of approach to human life are barren and irrelevant, because they cast absolutely no light upon human problems, social or personal. Modern ethics and theology have ceased to have any genuine commerce. The one is in touch with the sciences of biology, sociology, psychology and criminology; the other, by its very nature, can gain nothing from these sciences.

Ethics is concrete and inductive. Theology is abstract and deductive.

I have not tried to state and criticize the numerous theodicies which man's restless intellect has constructed. Mystics have taught that evil is an {165} illusion. But illusions have a way of being very real; and a derogatory term does not alter facts. Idealists have declared that what we call evil only increases the divine harmony, as a judicious discord heightens the effect of symphonic combinations. But this aesthetic argument conflicts with moral relations. Surely G.o.d would not be so self-centered. Thus there are weighty objections to all the ingenious and profound apologies for the course of events. But why are such apologies felt to be necessary? Simply and solely because events are a.s.sumed to be under the control of an intelligent, moral agent. Withdraw this a.s.sumption, and the problem vanishes.

When we turn from the religious view of the world to the scientific and philosophical, we are immediately impressed by the different perspective. What were theoretical problems of the most absolute and inescapable kind cease to exist. While the religious view of the world culminates in an attempted justification of the ways of G.o.d to man, the scientific studies the system of things as a given whole to which all questions of justification are irrelevant. The world is as it is, and the category of responsibility is inapplicable. Evil becomes a practical and relative problem. There is no thought of trying to fix responsibility upon some personal agent who could have done otherwise and did not. Man is a part of nature, although a self-directive organism adapted more or less adequately to his environment. And just because he is an organism, he must maintain himself in the face of attacks and fluctuating changes. He is not able to claim exemption from the consequences of cataclysms, such as earthquakes and tornadoes, which result from the unstable balance of physical {166} energies. He perishes in the same way that beasts and plants do, when his intelligence is not able to find a way of escape from a sudden danger.

In other words, physical evil is evil only because it hurts man, who does not want to be hurt. From the objective standpoint, evil and good differ not a jot from one another. They are both causal events baptised by man in accordance with his sympathies and antipathies.

Events are good to him or bad to him; in themselves, they are neither good nor bad. Rain does not fall in summer in order to nourish the plants; instead, the plants are nourished and continue to exist because the rain falls. Once, it was hard for man to admit this impersonalism.

He wanted to find an objective purpose focusing upon his career. But he is at last beginning to realize that his will to live and create is the source of all values. Nature is a thing to be used for his own desired ends.

There are no problems harder than false problems. The great achievement is to see that they are false because they flow from a false a.s.sumption. Remove this a.s.sumption, and the problem which tortured the greatest thinkers vanishes into thin air. The problem of evil becomes the problem of lessening evil by conquering nature and rendering her subservient to man. It is a problem of engineering, of applied chemistry, of preventive medicine, of social planning. Man must become the master of his destiny through the instrumentality of his intelligence. But what a different setting this presents from the one in which primitive man existed! Then man was needy and fearful and ignorant and helpless. Now he is wealthy, ingenious, sure of himself.

It is coming to be that man is less hurt by {167} physical agencies than by himself. He has freed himself from his environment; he must now free himself from his own pa.s.sions and hatreds. He must love righteousness and peace, and flee from dissension and all forms of injustice. The problem of evil has become a social problem. It is the task of amelioration by intelligent control.

But science, alone, will never be sufficient to meet the fact of evil.

The most optimistic believer in the possibilities of intelligent planning and control does not deny that tragedies of all sorts will still be only too common. Let us hope that there will be less of tuberculosis, less of grinding poverty, less of avoidable accidents.

But will there be less of secret disappointment with life, less of wounded affection? More will live happy and n.o.ble lives in the healthier society which is within our power than was possible in the past; but there will be mal-adjustments of various kinds. Individuals will seek to control the lives of others, and this control will be resented; friends will fall out over fancied or real wrongs; lovers will quarrel; misunderstandings will arise. None of Shakespeare's great tragedies turn about sickness and natural calamities. The motives are social and personal in character, the quarrels of rival houses, the senile pride of an old man, the ambition of princes, the adulterous love which leads to murder. Men will need strength of spirit and broad sympathy to meet the situations which confront them.

And many will fail hopelessly in the struggle, in the future as they have in the past. But, on the other hand, the rank and file will lead vigorous, active lives with a fair measure of those rewards of success and companions.h.i.+p which {168} sweeten endeavor. What more is there to say? Life is a hazard, and men must take their risk bravely. Courage on the part of the actor will do much; sympathy on the part of those near him will also do much; but risk there will be always.

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CHAPTER XIII

RELIGION AND ETHICS

What was the exact relation between religion and morality in the past?

Does morality any longer need the sanctions and supernatural setting which helped to support it in other days? These are questions of primary importance whose discussion should throw light upon both religion and human morality. Have human values become self-supporting and self-justifying? Do the decencies of life find sufficient ground in human nature for their continuance and increase? Or is the rescuing hand of a supernatural grace necessary to prevent deterioration? Such questions are peculiarly proper to-day when ethics is seeking to build itself upon a broad study of human instincts. Let us try to penetrate below the surface of the traditional contrasts between flesh and spirit--contrasts which hindered rather than furthered clear a.n.a.lysis--and note the actual basis of the spiritual life in man. In order to do so, we must read human nature as it manifests itself in organized society, sanely and calmly, expecting neither too much nor too little, and not being intimidated by the a.s.sertions of men who have built their lives around the traditional theological outlook. Those who have learned to lean upon a crutch or who have cast their spiritual experiences in a certain mold naturally feel at a loss when this is threatened. This is to put it too {170} mildly, perhaps, for the _odium theologic.u.m_ has a reputation which cannot be all unearned.

Yet, comprehensible as the protest of the conservative is, it must be viewed in the light of the psychological habits which it expresses. It may well be that new times and new points of view will bring new habits and new molds for spiritual experience. It may well be that the traditional religious sanctions will gradually lose their meaning in the new generation, born into a more social, humane and scientific atmosphere. Let us see what indications there are for this prediction.

In early times, religion was mainly a community affair. The tribe or state had its G.o.ds who protected it against its enemies in return for homage and sacrifice. The tribal G.o.d was inseparable from his wors.h.i.+pers. A G.o.d without a nation was almost as badly off as a nation without a divine protector. As members of the community, the individuals, separately and collectively, were required to perform established ceremonies which were pleasing in the eyes of the G.o.ds, and to refrain from acting in ways displeasing to them. G.o.ds and men formed, as it were, one society; and so customs and rituals always received the fearful sanctions of these divine powers. How naturally this outlook developed can readily be understood. And there can be little doubt that the double sanction of social group and divine witnesses was of advantage in those early days when man was more impulsive and less rational than he is to-day. A crime was, at one and the same time, a crime and a sin or act of impiety; and so close was thought to be the responsible connection of the individual and the group that the tribe was held to be in danger because of the deeds of its members. {171} The G.o.ds were living agents quick to anger and ready to punish in the direst ways. Warned by this knowledge of the jealousy of the G.o.ds, the fellow tribesmen hastened to punish the offender in order to ward off the divine anger. Thus the sanctions enforcing the customs were both social and religious.

This situation had its bad side as well as its good. While it helped to enforce the tribal laws by means of the awe of the divine witness who could not be escaped, it tended to merge valuable with trivial things. Society was quite irrational as yet, and was as likely to punish the violation of accidental taboos as really serious attacks upon society. It is a commonplace of history that religions have stressed ritual observances more than vital phases of conduct. The greater Hebrew prophets stand out just because of their emphasis upon human morality, upon justice and righteousness and love. Amos and Hosea are social reformers who conceive their national G.o.d as a G.o.d of righteousness who will turn his face away from the doers of evil. They threaten their compatriots with his wrath if they continue in their evil ways. "Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the Lord, the G.o.d of hosts, shall be with you, as ye say. Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate." Thus the setting of religion was used as the leverage for an attempted ethical reformation, the exalted reformer conceiving himself as the mouthpiece of his G.o.d. But the prophets were exceptions. The priestly cla.s.s, the cla.s.s that has always held closely to traditional ways of thinking, brought the usual mult.i.tude of non-moral acts under this impressive sanction.

The struggle between priest and prophet, {172} traditionalist and ethical reformer, took place within the religious view of the world, but the conflict was, after all, a purely human process. The prophets loved righteousness because they knew that it was good, because they fell repelled by unmerited poverty and by careless wealth, because they admired the decencies of life. They could not have given the justification of their sentiments as well as a theorist of to-day, but they had these sentiments as keenly as to-day's prophet has them. When we read their wonderful discourses, we are thrilled by the depth and intensity of their ethical life. But we are too apt to forget that the social situation in Palestine was the stimulus to their denunciations.

They were n.o.ble enough to feel that conditions were intolerable, and it was not a far step to believe that Yahweh would not tolerate them. A n.o.ble man has always a n.o.ble G.o.d. That is the reason why the G.o.d of Amos is n.o.ble. The theological view reverses the true causal relation.

Morality is always human morality, expressive of human nature and human conditions. Man may a.s.sign his ideals to some superhuman source because he is convinced that this source has selected him as its interpreter; but the fact that he has thought and judged in this moral way is indubitable, while his theory that Yahweh is speaking through him is merely an expression of the religious view of the world common to the time. When we stop a moment to think, we realize that Amos and Hosea were certain to put their views under the sanction of their national G.o.d. Not to have done so would have been far stranger psychologically than the ideals which they championed.

Did the prophetic claim that social justice was {173} sanctioned by Yahweh help its advance? Probably. I see no reason to doubt that it did somewhat--how much it is impossible to say. So far as the claim was accepted by the nation, it would a.s.sist the forces working for reform. But religious sanctions are far more powerful when they are explicit and detailed, as the history of Christianity has shown. And we must remember that the prophetic claims were not always accepted.

Religion is usually conservative and more or less conventional. The ritual element plays a considerable part in religious morality. It is as hard to change the people's ideas of G.o.d as it is to change their conceptions of justice and goodness. For this reason, I am not convinced that the religious sanction was of much advantage in the evolution of morality. The old has even more of the use of the sanction than has the new. Moral forces need to be vigorously based upon human nature and human relations if they are to dominate society and control the ethical standards which public opinion demands. The presence of religious sanctions simply beclouds the real factors at work. Morality can never, in the long run, be something pressed upon man from outside; it must express his life and its needs.

It cannot be denied that supernatural sanctions have often been very effective for certain types of people in certain anarchic periods. The robber baron of the Middle Ages, credulous and superst.i.tious, was restrained at times by his fear of the penalties threatened by Mother Church. But so is a burglar by a pistol pointed at him, even if it is not loaded. In the past, a code of morality much in advance of the times has, no doubt, often been aided by religious sanctions. But {174} it is foolish to base one's theories upon exceptional conditions.

We must remember that the situation confronted by the Christian tradition after the breakdown of the political and social life of the Roman Empire was abnormal. A turbulent ma.s.s of barbarians faced the ethics and theology of an overthrown civilization. It cannot too often be pointed out that this situation was unhealthy in many ways. It is not good for a people to have codes of morality thrust upon it from outside. Especially is it bad when the code is in many ways untrue to human nature under normal conditions. Ascetic, other-worldly Christianity distorted the impulses of mediaeval man. And it is certain that religious sanctions, alone, enabled it to control society.