Theology and the Social Consciousness Part 3

4. _Grounded in the Immanence of G.o.d._--But back of all finite phenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the possibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. And it is, perhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical solidarity of the race is blindly groping. Unless one chooses to accept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe (and this position, I think with F. C. S. Schiller, may be reasonably defended),[19] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final explanation. And most of those, who try to think things through, feel this pressure. And metaphysics, we do well to remember with Professor James, "means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and consistently."[20] As Lotze puts it: "How a cause begins to produce its _immediate_ effect, how a condition is the foundation of its direct result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and effect _do_ thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that compose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. But there is an intolerable contradiction in the a.s.sumption that, though two beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that which takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things that do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect each other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other."[21]

This question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social consciousness. How can it be that we do so influence one another? how is our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? The answer of theistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of G.o.d.

Upon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can ascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to G.o.d. All else is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon him. The kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be _outside_ of G.o.d, independent of him; this would not make man more, but less. Every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least in common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real immanence of G.o.d. We are, because G.o.d wills in us. This metaphysical relation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be conceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so conceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral initiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute dependence of all the finite upon the will of G.o.d. As to our _being_, we root solely in G.o.d. And the unity and consistency of the being of G.o.d are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. Only so is that contradiction of which Lotze spoke avoided. We are not independent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our very being upon G.o.d. And we are thus members one of another, ultimately, only through him.

The further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal connections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible a.n.a.lysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy, independently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit that the full cause is not really present in any of the finite manifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of the "hidden efficacy of the Infinite everywhere at work," and so must recognize once again the indubitable immanence of G.o.d, the absolute dependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as possible only through him.[22]

Or, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of causality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in G.o.d. As Professor Bowne states it:[23] "The fundamental ant.i.thesis of purpose and causation is incorrect. The true ant.i.thesis is that of mechanical and volitional causality." And he intimates the probability that all causality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. "It becomes a question," he says, "whether true causality can be found in the phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal which incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule."

The unity and consistency of the immanent will of G.o.d, then, are the ultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. The mutual influence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation only in G.o.d.

The social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of the possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a reflection of the immanence of the one G.o.d in the unity and consistency of his life.

But this, after all, is not the most important element of the social consciousness. So far as it is _ethical_ at all, it can have no final explanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. We are driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the subject of the chapter.

II. WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE FINAL POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ETHICAL?

1. _Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of G.o.d._--It is not enough that we should be able to think of the unity of One Life pervading all, or even of One Will upholding all. If the social consciousness, as distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be able to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal forces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend; in other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical purpose conceivable only in a Person; that the ideals and purposes of finite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with G.o.d's own; that the loving holy purpose of the Infinite Will quickens and sustains and surrounds our purposes.

Let us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness can be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must remain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without real excuse for being. That is, if the social consciousness is not to be an illusion, it must be, as Professor Nash contends, cosmical, and not merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. This is the very heart of his stimulating book, _Ethics and Revelation_, expressed, for example, in such sentences as these: "Nothing save a sense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things, nothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on the side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion for the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of shreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable to the difficult work it has to do. But this sense of kins.h.i.+p with what is deepest and most abiding in the universe--what else is meant by pure religion." And again: "We, as founders and builders of the true society, find ourselves shut up to an impa.s.sioned faith in the sincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being.

Our religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that personal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league and covenant with the fundamental being. Here is the focus-point of the prophetic revelation. At this point, the deep in G.o.d answers to the deep in Man.... All that He is He puts in pledge for the perfecting of the society He has founded."[24]

Paulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point of view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his own solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he says: "There is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond mere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. That is his own life and his future. His life has a meaning for him, and he directs it toward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by virtue of his will. Thus a faith springs up by the side of his knowledge. He believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if he is at all in earnest about it. Since, however, his aim is not an isolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and finally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his people, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and goodness in humanity. Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in that cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always something of the form of a religion. Hence faith infers that an inner connection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain of history, and believes that in history something like an immanent principle of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and leads it to victory over all resisting forces." And Paulsen holds that this implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical theory. "What the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and final goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then believes that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the world."[25]

We must be able, then, to believe that the best we know--our highest ideals--are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty of the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion.

Ultimately, now, this means that nothing short of full Christian conviction is needed to support the social consciousness. We need to be able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of Christ is at the very heart of the world. Nothing less will suffice. And this is exactly the support which the Christian revelation offers to the social consciousness.

2. _G.o.d's Sharing in Our Life._--But if the social consciousness is only a true reflection of G.o.d's own desire and purpose, then in a sense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very life of G.o.d. He shares in it. And no man can really see what that means, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself carried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of another: "For the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of G.o.d. Were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel.

But in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain is his." And from the vision of this self-giving life of G.o.d we turn back to our own place of service, saying with Matheson: "If Thou art love then Thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search Thy world."[26]

We probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical life with the life of G.o.d than by renewing our old faith that we are children of a common Father, who have come, under G.o.d's own leading--so far as a social consciousness is ours--voluntarily to share in G.o.d's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men.

We do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with G.o.d.

3. _The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social Consciousness._--And as soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of Christ's thought of G.o.d as Father, and into his revelation in his life and death as to what the spirit of that Fatherhood is, we turn back to the elements of our social consciousness to find them all transfigured.

Our _likeness_ is the likeness of common children of G.o.d reflecting the image of the one Father, capable of character and of indefinite progress into the highest.

Our _mutual influence_ roots in a real Fatherhood, both in source of being and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively working for all.

Our _sense of the value and sacredness of the person_ now for the first time gets its full justification. Men are not only creatures capable of joying and suffering, but children of G.o.d with a preciousness to be interpreted only in the light of Christ, and with the "power of the endless life" upon them. Concerning the value of the person, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is peculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to ignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed most with John Stuart Mill and Sully. Of the hope of immortality, Mill says: "The beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling.

It makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings, and gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the sentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by mankind at large." And Sully adds: "I would only say that if men are to abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering and sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made good, so far as I can see, by any new idea of services to collective humanity."[27]

Our _sense of obligation_ deepens with all this deepening of the value of men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to G.o.d's own life and character--in no mere figurative sense the voice of G.o.d in us.

And our _love_ becomes simply entering a little way into G.o.d's own love, a sharing more and more in his life.

And when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in the light of Christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the first time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and that it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. If the social consciousness is not an illusion, Christ's thought of G.o.d and of the life with G.o.d ought to be true; and if the world is an honest world, it is true. It is not only true that Christ has a social teaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires Christ's teaching for its own final justification. The Christian truth _is_ so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone can give it adequate motive and power; for, in Keim's words, "to-day, to-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that G.o.d is our Father, and that the Father is the rest of our souls."[28]

[18] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 367, 368.

[19] _The Philosophical Review_, May, 1896, p. 228.

[20] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 461.

[21] _Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 599.

[22] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 54, 84, 102.

[23] _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. 91, 111.

[24] _Ethics and Revelation_, pp. 50, 243, 244.

[25] _Introduction to Philosophy_, pp. 8, 9, 313.

[26] _Searchings in the Silence_, p. 46.

[27] Quoted by Orr, _The Christian View of G.o.d and the World_, pp.

160, 72.

[28] Quoted by Bruce, _The Kingdom of G.o.d_, p. 157.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE CONCEPTION OF RELIGION

INTRODUCTION

From the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine give to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of our inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any means always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect our conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines?

In this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact connection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime importance. But we can see, for example, in this second division of our theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and how religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully warranted; and this is the main question.

If the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the thoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then it is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion will necessarily affect theological statement. Our inquiry as to the influence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins with religion.

The discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all that part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into the life with G.o.d.

The natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the subjects of the four succeeding chapters: (1) The social consciousness tends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; (2) it tends to emphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly mystical; (3) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; (4) it tends to emphasize the concretely historically Christian in religion.

CHAPTER V

_THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL_