LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ABSO- LUTE IDEALISM AND PRAGMATISM AS INTERPRETERS OF RELIGION THE NATHANIEL WILLIAM TAYLOR LECTURES For 1909-10 GIVEN BEFORE THE DIVINITY SCHOOL OF YALE UNIVERSITY BY EUGENE WILLIAM LYMAN, D. D. PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY IN BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY UNIVERSITY NEW YOFK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1910 COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 1910 So MY FATHER WHOSE LOVED MEMORY AND TO MY MOTHER WHOSE GRACIOUS PRESENCE HELP ME TO UNITE THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN WORLDS OF THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE 'T^HIS volume consists of the lectures de- livered at Yale University in December, 1909, on the Nathaniel William Taylor founda- tion. The lectures are published as prepared for that occasion, in the hope that an attempt at a popular statement of the great themes dis- cussed may have a value of its own. There are in general two methods open to the worker in the field of theology. They are the method of the cloister and the method of the clinic. These two methods may be dis- tinguished by their predominant motives. The one seeks primarily to protect religion, the other strives mainly to develop religion. The former method aims first of all to gain support for existing religious truth from philosophy, tradition, or the church. The latter method aims to deepen the significance of religious truth and to enlarge its boundaries by liberat- vn PREFACE ing and stimulating the religious life. The two methods are, in more technical language, the a priori method and the method of experience. The one deserves to be called cloistral because it seeks to gain its fundamental truths from sources other than that of man's actual religious experience. The other deserves to be called clinical because in the last analysis it relies for its scientific truth upon the study of the religious life and needs of men. The two methods are, for various reasons, not as clearly distinguished as they should be. On the one hand a thinker of the cloistral type may be concerned to make his results, after they have been gained, as far as possible serviceable to life, and so the fact may be obscured that serviceableness to life is not the principle on which he depends for the discovery of truth. On the other hand the thinker of the second type may be led to sink himself deeply into the religious life of the past and in truth he must be one who knows how to enter into his closet and shut the door and so men viii PREFACE may deem his method cloistral, whereas it really is clinical. For this reason it has seemed to me that an effort to bring out the contrast be- tween these two methods, as they bear upon the interpretation of religion, might be of real ser- vice. The object of these lectures, therefore, is to determine the relative merits of the clois- tral and clinical methods, and then to apply the one adopted to certain great themes of religion. I desire here to acknowledge my permanent in- debtedness, in whatever theological work I may do, to my honored teachers on the Faculty of Yale Divinity School. In the field of construc- tive theological thinking I owe to the richly suggestive and profoundly spiritual mind of Professor Frank C. Porter more than I well can express. For helpfulness and counsel in regard to the preparation of this volume special thanks are due to my colleague, Professor Warren J. Moulton, and to the Rev. Herbert A. Jump, of New Britain, Connecticut. EUGENE W. LYMAN. BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, May 26, 1910. ix CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION i CHAPTER I. HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT .... 8 II. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL . 59 III. ONE INCREASING PURPOSE .... 108 IV. MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS ... 164 NOTES 221 INDEX < 229 UNIVERSITY THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS INTRODUCTION 'TNHEOLOGIES are judged, in the long run, not by their symmetry or elaborateness, but by their contribution to the solution of human problems. On the shelves of every theological library there are works of divinity which are far more neatly constructed and minutely wrought out than anything that the theological writers of our day are putting forth. But to most of us they are as objects in a mu- seum. They are, indeed, to be studied by all who would have full mastery over present thought, but they cannot be largely appro- priated and applied to the present. They rest from their labors, and the works of others do follow them. Their symmetry and elaborate- ness do not condemn them, but neither do they preserve them. They have ceased to speak to THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS us simply and directly; their language is archaic and foreign, and we turn to those whose speech has the accents of our mother tongue. Most of these elaborate theological writings of the past are for our time what the wooden frigates of our navy were for the Civil War. On a certain day in Hampton Roads one monitor proved to be worth twenty frigates for the protection of the cause of the Union. The more intricate the scheme of spars and rigging on those stately vessels, the more fatally did they carry their crews down into the sea. There was a new situation to cope with, and hence new methods of defence and attack were re- quired. In a similar way new situations con- front us in the world of thought, and the church militant must have its Ericssons and its Edisons as well as its officers of the line if it is to hold its ancient place in our civilization. Let me not speak, however, as though the issues of life with which theology is concerned are necessarily all new. On the contrary, many are as old as the human heart, out of which they proceed. The point for us to bear in mind is simply that, whether the issues be 2 INTRODUCTION new or old, the capacity to help in meeting them is that by which theologies are judged. The problem burdening the spirits of men to-day may be the one with which the thinkers of Is- rael struggled more than two millenniums ago, 'Why do the righteous suffer?" or it may be the modern problem, 'How can a man be just, when he is a member of an unjust industrial system?" It matters not, so long as the issue is one that tries men's souls. Whatever that issue may be, our theology will be judged in the light of it. Theology may indeed repudiate the demand that it furnish instant and final solutions for all such problems, but it cannot repudiate the demand that whatever it has to say should bear upon those problems, and that its right to a hearing be proportionate to the adequacy of the solutions it offers. The one who attempts to form his theology in forgetfulness of the turbid stream of human life is thus foredoomed to failure. The the- ologian cannot live unto himself. He must see the visions and feel the burdens of his age, he must vibrate responsively to the great passions and aspirations of his kind, he must 3 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS know the heart's bitterness and its yearning tenderness, he must be mindful of the mys- teries that shroud the soul of man, and must perceive how the interweaving and entangling of lives with one another make up the glory and the tragedy of existence. These human realities must enter into his experience, if his interpretation of the eternal life is to come home to men with power. He needs to behold how Life, like a dome of many colored glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity," in order that he may do something toward help- ing each individual with his own peculiarly colored outlook, realize something of the ful- ness of the light celestial. The fundamental conviction on which these lectures are based is that theology cannot be isolated from human problems without the most fatal results. But such a statement in its broad and general form arouses the dissent of no one. On the contrary it is likely to be ac- cepted complacently as an obvious truth. The idea becomes momentous only when we ask 4 INTRODUCTION what kind of a relation exists between human problems and theology. How far in the realm of religious truth does such a relation extend ? How constant and pervasive is it ? Are we, with the supernaturalist of the older type, to conceive of religious truth as let down from heaven like the New Jerusalem, but of course let down for the salvation and perfecting of men, and so to that extent practical in its nat- ure ? Or are we to conceive of religious truth, with those who base their theology on absolute idealism, as a land into which we migrate, a realm whose geography is fixed, but which has a practical aspect in the sense that we are to inhabit and till it ? Or again, as the Ritschlian thinks, is religious truth like a vessel bearing us over an unplumbed and uncharted sea toward a New World, of which our pilot, alone of all men, has taught us to dream ? Or once more, shall we adopt the teaching of the prag- matist, according to which all truth, that of religion included, is like the body of the soul, a thing instinct with life in every part, the organ by which a soul communicates with its fellows and with the Infinite, growing as the 5 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS soul grows, and as immortal as the spirits, finite or Infinite, by which its tissue is woven ? The question need be put no more concretely than this. We already have come upon one of those 'Battles of opinion That divide the sons of men." The task of the present lectures is to try to fashion the general conviction that theology should be kept in close relation to human prob- lems into greater definiteness by discussing it in the light of the contrasts presented by the different points of view just mentioned. The stand-point of the older supernaturalism indeed has been criticised so thoroughly in our time that it will be referred to only incidentally in the following lectures; but the stand-points of the absolute idealist, the Ritschlian, and the pragmatist must be taken up for as serious discussion as the compass of this lectureship allows. How do these doctrines bear upon the issues of life ? To what extent do they lead us into direct contact with the great human prob- lems, and afford us hope of gaining in some 6 INTRODUCTION measure their solutions ? With this question in mind let us proceed to the theme of the hour, which is, 'Highways of Thought," and the approach they may afford us to human prob- lems. I HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT TIT'HATEVER may be the special goal that a student is seeking, he finds that, if he wishes to make real progress toward it, he must follow one of the great highways of thought. These highways as one now finds them are the creation of no single man. A few great pioneer thinkers did indeed first traverse them alone. All honor to those pioneers! But the trails which they opened up have since been trampled broad by the passage of many thinkers. As for the average philosopher or theologian, he is little more than a macadamizer on one of the great highways a worthy but not a glorious task. Now so inevitably does the commerce of thought move along a certain few main high- ways that present-day theology cannot avoid making use of them, even if it would. In truth, it would not be difficult to show that 8 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT theology has had no small share in shaping the course of some of these highways. Our present question, however, is not what theology may have done toward constructing the avenues of thought, but rather, what is their capacity for serving the ends of theology. Hence we ask, which of these highways facilitates most the task of theology as the servant of religion, and enables it to deal most effectively with human problems ? The highways of thought that are to come under our survey are three: The highway of absolute idealism; the highway of the critical philosophy, or Kantianism (for that is the one along which the Ritschlian caravan is moving); and the highway of pragmatism. First, then, the highway of absolute idealism. What is its starting-point, what is the charac- ter of the course it opens to us, whither does it lead our thinking ? We should bear in mind, at the outset, that the general term ' ideal- ism '' has many associations gathered more or less loosely about it associations that are ethi- 9 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS cal and spiritual as well as philosophical in the more formal sense and that in our discus- sion of absolute idealism we have to do, not with these larger and vaguer associations, but with a definite logical scheme of philosophy. Absolute idealism asks us to begin with the question as to what it is to "be" what do we mean when we say that a thing exists ? Just as one may begin the study of geology by ex- amining his own door-step, so this type of phi- losophy asks us to turn our attention to those well-worn conceptions that have sustained the going out and the coming in of our thought since our minds were first freed from their swaddling-clothes. What must be the nature of anything that can be called 'real" ? The answer which absolute idealism gives to this question is that to exist is to be a part of some consciousness. Everything that exists is known to some consciousness, and its being known is the reason for its existence. Con- sciousness is the tissue out of which facts are made. Mind is the only reality, and every ex- istent thing is part and parcel of some mind. Facts and ideas are not two different sorts of 10 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT reality any more than the blue sky above us is different from the air we breathe; both have this in common, that they are experiences of some mind. But now the same principle must apply to the existence of our human minds. They, too, are facts, so they, too, must be a part of some consciousness. Moreover, between every thing and every other thing exists a network of relations. These relations are also facts and must be known. And so we are swiftly brought to an Absolute Knower, one All-inclusive Mind, of whose experience everything that exists is a part. Every apparently isolated object in the world is like the bit of cloth that David held up before the eyes of Saul at En-gedi a fragment of the king's robe. All things are a part of the one divine experience. We ourselves have our existence as objects of God's thought. Out of his consciousness is everything made that has been made. But the same reasoning which is applied to all that now exists is also extended to the past and the future. What reality have past events ? Surely they have some reality. The world that ii THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Alexander conquered has more reality for us than the other worlds for whose existence he sighed that he might conquer them. Now on the principles of absolute idealism we must say that the reality of that past world consists in the fact that to some consciousness it is present that is to say, what is past to us is a pres- ent reality to the Absolute. The future, too, is to be dealt with in the same way. The abso- lute idealist would say that last July the Payne tariff measure was more of a reality than Presi- dent Taft's possible veto, as the statute-books now show. Put yourself for a moment back to the time of last summer's session of Con- gress. As an absolute idealist you should say: 'To human vision this tariff bill is only a pos- sible law, still undetermined in some of its features. But to the view of the Absolute it is a present reality, with all its details defined." Thus the all-inclusive consciousness of the Absolute embraces not only all reality that from our finite point of view can be said to co- exist in the present, but also all that belongs to what we call past and future. In other words, the Absolute is timeless. That is to say, 12 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT while his consciousness includes our experiences of time, for him as a whole there is no time, and as a consequence whatever has been or is to be is a present fact to him. In order that this conception may not seem too baffling to us it should be considered in the light of the use Professor Royce makes of the idea of 'the span of consciousness." lsjs The present moment, as we actually feel it, really lasts a certain brief portion of time. What we call 'now" may be a fraction of a second long, or it may be two minutes long, but it is usually a matter of seconds and never is it a literal instant of time. That is, each conscious moment * spans " a certain brief amount of time, and the things that happen in that section are felt all together. But now this span of our consciousness may be regarded as a perfectly arbitrary matter. We may say that man's mental apparatus is simply set to run in a par- ticular way, whereas it might have been set to run in a quite different way. The long hand on a stop-watch sweeps the dial every second *A11 references to literature are to be found in the notes at the end of the book. 13 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS instead of slowly traversing it once an hour, as with an ordinary watch. So a consciousness might have a time-span of one millionth part of a second, and thus be able to perceive com- plex events where we perceive nothing at all. In the same way we can think of consciousnesses having a vastly longer time-span than ours. Now the Absolute must have an infinite time- span, and hence to him all things, which to us are either present, past, or future, are combined in one vast conscious moment. One other characteristic of absolute idealism should be specially noted. Its principal doc- trines are all a matter of rigid logical necessity. Each step in their unfolding is one that we are forced to take, if only we will think con- sistently. As Professor Royce declares, to de- scribe the nature of being in any other way results in a contradiction of terms. This ap- plies equally to the doctrine that all things exist as parts of some consciousness, to the doctrine that all finite consciousnesses are parts of the Absolute, and to that which declares that not only what now exists, but the past and future as well, are alike completely present to 14 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT the Absolute Consciousness. The absolute ideal- ist's whole argument is made to move forward by a rack-and-pinion process, and is represented as self-locking against any attempt to reverse its onward movement. Such, then, in its most general features, is the highway of absolute idealism. 2 Now let us turn to an examination of the outcome of this course of thought in the light of our general theme. How does absolute idealism bear upon human problems ? To begin with, we should note that this high- way of absolute idealism is built in part out of the ruins of materialism. Its coursel eads di- rectly over the site where the materialistic cit- adel was reared. It is true that the first honors for the overthrow of materialism go to the philosophy of Kant. But absolute idealism does the work more thoroughly, because it not only undermines materialism by negative crit- icism, but goes on to construct a positive spir- itual metaphysics. And after all, in practical effect materialism is completely vanquished only when some form of spiritual metaphysics has been put in its place. 15 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS But there is reason to fear that absolute idealism maintains its authority with the aver- age lay student of philosophy altogether too largely by virtue of the overthrow of materi- alism, in which it has had a conspicuous share. Just as the Republican party has in the past sometimes maintained its ascendency, in spite of grave delinquencies, on the strength of the Civil War, so certain problems that absolute idealism involves remain in the background, particularly for the student of theology, because of its success in routing materialism. We should proceed, therefore, to consider the more positive contributions of absolute idealism, if we would rightly appraise this point of view. The main contribution that idealism makes to theology, and one which bears positively on the solution of human problems, is the idea of the immanence of God. The place of this conception in the idealistic scheme we have seen already in the doctrine that all things, including our finite conscious lives, have their being only in and through the being of God. As for the value of this doctrine for life, it is widely appreciated in our day. God immanent 16 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT in his universe means that the world in which we live, however baffling to our understand- ing, is still our home. The stars are not merely lakes of fiery metal in the chill expanse of space; this earth is something more than the reeking battle-ground of animal species; man is not simply a gregarious animal endowed with su- perlative cunning; society must not be regarded as merely an Asiatic fair where the guileful blandish the unwary out of their means of sub- sistence. No, plausible as such views of our world may be made to appear, reason dictates a higher creed. This mighty universe, with its system upon system of worlds, pulsates with an infinite life; subtle waves of intelligence vi- brate to its farthest coast; infinitely numerous attractions and repulsions, organic tendencies, instincts, conscious impulses, and moral striv- ings are being woven into the realization of one vast purpose, in which all that has spiritual meaning will find itself embraced. The veil of mystery hangs close about us, but it is shot through with light. Life has its grinding toil, its bitter defeats, and its appalling tragedies, but the immanent God who toils and suffers 17 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS with us has unmeasured resources for the ac- complishment of his purposes; and he wel- comes each toiling and struggling soul into the august fellowship of his age-long labors and achievements. It seems impossible to deny the practical and moral power imparted by this faith in the im- manence of God which I have just tried to de- scribe, and the further meaning of which we shall have occasion to develop in the later lect- ures of this course. But that to which I ask your attention now is the relation between the idea of the divine immanence and the timeless character attributed to God by absolute ideal- ism. My question is whether the notion that God is timeless does not tend to neutralize the religious and practical value of faith in his im- manence. So long as we apply the idea of the divine immanence only to physical nature, this diffi- culty remains in the background. For the carrying through of this idea in the physical realm turns mainly on showing that space has only subordinate reality, and that conse- quently the world of material things in space 18 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT may be regarded ultimately as one form in which the life of God finds expression. Such an argument has a solid basis in experience, because in our own inner life we have knowl- edge of reality that is not subject to the forms of space. The difficulty comes into the foreground when we apply the idea of the divine imma- nence to history, which indeed is the realm where it should have the greatest practical value. The absolute idealist affirms that God is time- less. But of course time is the form which characterizes history through and through. In truth, time pertains to all our psychic expe- rience, both outer and inner. In spite of the position taken by absolute idealism, it is a question whether we can conceive spirit at all concretely apart from the idea of time. But leaving that aside for the present, it is of course impossible to think of history as anything but a series of events in time. Now if God were really timeless, could he be immanent in his- tory ? It seems plain that he could not, and the idealistic doctrine appears definitely to ex- clude such a thought. According to Pro- 19 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS fessor Royce finite consciousnesses do all that is done in time. 3 God does not do anything in time, except as we think of his action as identically the same as some finite action. God, then, is not an actor in history whose deeds count in addition to our deeds. 4 So far as events in history are concerned, he acts only as Congress acts that is, when its members vote. This doctrine of God as a timeless Absolute results in the ' remoteness " and "foreignness" of that conception, of which Professor James complains. 5 It leads to the distinction between the 'Temporal Order ''' and the "Eternal Order," which runs through the pages of Pro- fessor Royce's great work, 6 and which, as the exposition proceeds, grows into a chasm that yawns as widely as a dualistic chasm well can in a deliberately monistic treatise. Every- thing that happens belongs to the Temporal Order. The Eternal Order simply is. Any actor in the Temporal Order may at any mo- ment be 'viewed' from the stand-point of the Eternal Order, but as so viewed he is identically the same as when 'viewed eternally " at any 20 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT other moment, say fifty years later. As living, active personalities we belong to the Tem- poral Order, whereas God belongs to another order of being. As one contemplates the idea of the timeless Absolute in its strict meaning and especially as one regards it from the stand-point of the ethical life with its constant activity in the production of spiritual goods it loses all power to call forth our worship, and appears like a huge spherical aquarium, encompassing within itself motion and life, but as a whole rigid, glassy, and motionless. Surely the timeless Ab- solute is not the supreme solver of human prob- lems, nor the God to whose worship we should summon the aspiring and struggling sons of men. The Jehovah of the Old Testament is a God of battles, and One that worketh righteousness upon the earth. The Heavenly Father of our New Testament faith is one who is seeking to reconcile all things unto himself, and whose Spirit agonizes with our spirits. For the Chris- tian consciousness the God of activity, of infinite purposes and of redeeming power will always have profounder practical meaning than the 21 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS timeless Absolute of idealistic speculation, even though the latter be conceived as the Envelope of all finite existence. Thus we see that absolute idealism contains elements which impair the practical value of its richest insight. While it undertakes to establish the immanence of God, it does so in such a way as to rob the result of its worth. Now the ultimate source of the difficulty is the method employed. Absolute idealism assumes that the deductive method must predominate in the field of metaphysics. Hence it seeks to work out a spiritual view of the universe by logical demon- stration. Professor Royce, referring to his own position writes: "The only ground for this definition of Being lies in the fact that every other conception of reality proves, upon analysis, to be self-contradictory, precisely in so far as it does not in essence agree with this one; while every effort directly to deny the truth of this conception proves, upon analysis, to involve the covert affirmation of this very conception itself. Upon these assertions of the absolute logical necessity of our conception of Being, our whole case in this argument rests." 7 22 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT The method which leads us to the fundamental truths of the universe is therefore wholly a matter of the intellect. Now the certainty claimed for the results of this method has blinded men to its one sided- ness. After all, if we are to gain a genuinely spiritual interpretation of the universe, we must draw upon the entire spiritual experience of man. One cannot construct a symphony by arithmetic nor paint a landscape by geometry, however much these sciences may have to do with music and painting. The soul of the artist with all its powers must be engaged in the work, or the spiritual meaning without which any work of art is dead will be wanting. So in gaining the deepest truths of the universe one cannot rely on the intellect alone, but must have recourse to moral and religious experience as well, and in fact must allow this highest type of experience to play the decisive role. In the actual practice of the ideal life, and in the vital exercise of religious faith, the deepest insights are gained, and it is only through these highest activities that we come to a full assurance of the spirituality of the universe in which we live. 23 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Absolute idealism, it is true, always has recog- nized that moral faith could serve in lieu of philosophy, but not that it was one of the prime resources of philosophy. It has conceived faith to be serviceable for the erection, as it were, of squatters' cabins, which should be replaced as soon as possible by the more capacious struct- ures that the pure intellect rears. But these constructions of the pure intellect prove in the end to be too much like certain European cathedrals whose sites have been determined solely by some legend of the church they are too remote from the avenues of daily life to be able to render large service to the spiritual needs of mankind. We therefore must prose- cute our inquiry further, in the hope of finding a method that will make possible a larger use of our moral and religious experience in forming our conceptions of the world and of life. To this end we proceed to a brief survey of our second highway of thought. 24 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT II The critical philosophy of Kant, although the creation of a single thinker, has also be- come one of the broad highways of thought. The modern idealist follows it for a certain portion of its course, and both theologians and positivists are to be found therein. Since, how- ever, it is on the whole the chosen avenue of a definite school of theological thinking, the Ritschlian School, our cursory account of it will have reference solely to certain main positions at which these theologians arrive. And this is why we revert to the critical philosophy after our discussion of absolute idealism. Since the work of Kant preceded and initiated the type of idealism that we have just discussed, it would seem natural to follow the same order in our present survey. But as a matter of fact the Ritschlian theologians, as well as many natural scientists, have turned 'back to Kant" in re- action from absolute idealism, and hence in considering the service that the highways of thought render to theology our present order is the more natural. 25 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Kant furnishes the entering wedge for that larger recognition of religious experience for which we are seeking. This he does because he makes faith one of the cardinal principles of his philosophy. By faith Kant does not mean a blind acquiescence to authority, nor a merely intellectual acceptance of doctrine; he means by it rather a moral attitude of the soul, an active fidelity to the good, that kind of faith which the prophet Habakkuk meant when he declared that the righteous shall live by his faithfulness. In faith so understood Kant finds one of the essential functions of the human spirit, which philosophy cannot transcend, and hence should justify and utilize. Let us recall how this is done in his philosophy. The presupposition on which Kant accords to faith a fundamental place is his doctrine of the limits of human knowledge. 8 He analyzes the constitution of the mind as the statesman analyzes the Constitution of the United States, and he feels forced to become a strict-con- structionist. The understanding, as he shows, is equipped for its work with certain funda- mental principles, notably the laws of cau- 26 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT sation and substance, but what is their scope ? Formerly these laws were employed to settle questions in the metaphysical realm, but Kant denies that this is justifiable. The true func- tion of these laws is to serve as the means by which we reduce to order the experiences of our senses and the facts of the inner life, and more than this we cannot say. We know that we have a right to use these funda- mental principles of the understanding to this extent, for otherwise our world would not be the world of law which it really is. It would be just a mass of miscellaneous and incoherent experiences an April fool's world, in which the sugar was salt, and the cake cotton, and the pocket-books vanished from the sidewalk as we tried to pick them up. Hence it is legiti- mate to use the laws of causation and sub- stance as the warp into which the woof of ex- perience furnished by the senses is woven, but we have no ground for extending them into the field of metaphysics. Knowledge, in the ac- curate sense of the term that is, theoretical or scientific knowledge is limited to phenom- ena. We know things as they appear to us, but not as they are in themselves. Man may be 27 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS free, but so far as our knowledge can go he is causally determined in every act. The soul may be immortal, and there may be a great First Cause or unitary World-Ground or an Absolute All-inclusive Consciousness, but these points never can be matters of knowledge in the true sense of the term. The laws of thought as applied to experience give us none of these things, and when we cut loose from experi- ence and pass to metaphysical speculation, we simply slip the belt from the driving-wheel of thought the machinery by which the real work of knowing is done stands motionless, and while our thinking may go on with great free- dom, it accomplishes nothing except to endanger its own coherence. The critical philosophy thus appears to give us a very narrow world. It closes to our in- tellect the old realm of metaphysics. It requires the philosopher to have a paid-up capital of experience for all his transactions, and it con- fines him chiefly to working out more fully the theory of knowledge. The physical sciences and psychology cover the realm where real knowledge is to be had. But now comes in the other great charac- 28 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT teristic of the critical philosophy. Where knowledge is excluded faith is given a passport. Kant himself declared that he must limit knowledge in order to make room for faith. 9 After the boundaries of the theoretical reason have been determined, the sphere of the practi- cal reason is disclosed. The practical reason deals with man's moral life, and with the relation between that life and the world in which it is lived. 10 Its fundamental teaching is that the sense of duty is the kingliest quality in man, and has ultimate authority for him. Any deliberate conviction, so long as it bears the vignette of the sovereign consciousness "I ought," is absolutely binding on the soul of man. But actual allegiance to the principle of moral authority within us calls for the exercise of faith. It requires us to shape our lives in accordance with the convictions that the will is free, that the soul is immor- tal, and that God exists and rules this world. These ideas are postulates of our moral con- sciousness, and are valid, because without them we cannot rationally live the moral life. Thus through our moral natures we lay hold of truths 29 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS that our intellectual natures alone never can attain, and that relate to the metaphysical realm, from which the intellect is excluded. 11 The practical reason, therefore, affords us a new kind of knowledge a knowledge gained through faith. Kant, however, very carefully bounds this realm of faith. God, freedom, and immortality are objects of knowledge only in a restricted sense. They are matters of practical knowledge, but Kant still insists that in the full and accurate sense of the word knowledge does not extend beyond phenomena. In the strictest use of our terms all that we have arrived at is that we should act "as if" we were free, "as if" immor- tality awaited us, "as if 9 there were a God. 12 So to act is our duty, and hence for practical purposes these ideas represent reality, but more than this we cannot say. The mainland of experience belongs to scientific knowledge, which, however, is able to derive from it only a world of sense perceptions and mechanical laws. For faith are reserved a few islands off the coast, where it may keep its lights burning in the hope of sustaining some commerce with 3 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT the great deep beyond. We may feel inclined to protest against a philosophy which thus con- demns faith to be a lonely watcher between the known and the unknown, but at the same time we should be glad that the religious attitude has been able to gain any rights as an indis- pensable source of knowledge under the patents of philosophy, and should consider whether the cause of truth does not require the extension of those rights. We now must turn aside from the teachings of Kant himself, in order to inquire into the way in which the Ritschlian theologians build upon those teachings, and especially into the relation which they establish between the criti- cal philosophy and historical religion. Strictly speaking, the Ritschlians find in the critical philosophy no solution of human prob- lems, but rather the development of those prob- lems into their acutest form. Man as we know him is an object of nature, a member of an in- finite cosmic process, which is governed by rigid and infallible mechanical laws. He is abso- lutely determined in his every act by the proc- ess as a whole, and the effects which his reac- 3 1 UNIVERSITY THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROPLEMS tions produce upon the whole are of the most infinitesimal kind. Moreover, the feebleness of his life is paralleled by its transiency, and from the stand-point of this infinite cosmic process the spores of a mushroom are not of less conse- quence than the children of men. But on the other hand, from the stand-point of value man is, of all the objects of nature, supreme. He alone possesses personality and the capacity for moral development. He alone aspires to rise above nature, to free himself from the bondage of mechanical law, and to achieve ideals of eternal worth. Man refuses to submit to the tyranny of fact, dreams of God, freedom, and immortality, struggles to grasp in experience the realities of which he dreams, and labors to make human society an embodiment of the ideal world. Now to the thought of the Ritschlians there is for this sharp antinomy between man as science describes him and man as ethics conceives him no theoretical solution. A practical solution is the only possible one, and that is to be found in historic Christianity alone. He who has felt the saving power of Christ has been really set 32 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT free from the fetters of the natural life. He has had actual experience of the God whom theoretical reason cannot even conceive, and whom practical reason cannot discover. He has become a partaker in the immortal life which is the inheritance of the children of God. Apart from Christ man has no true goal for his life and vacillates aimlessly or battles blindly amid the flux of things. But when he has come under the magnetic influence of Christ's person- ality, then he becomes responsive to mighty and pervasive forces to which before he was unsusceptible, and his life is forever directed toward the true pole of his being. In Christ the veil of our phenomenal existence is thinned down to absolute transparency, so that the in- finite God, who is to us elsewhere but Broken gleams, and a stifled splendor, and gloom, shines through, revealing in undimmed efful- gence the glory of his being. In redemption through Christ, and in personal fellowship with him, we gain what all the philosophies of the world have sought in vain. 13 The Ritschlian does not fail to point out that 33 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS we are still moving in the sphere of practical knowledge here, and should make no claim of having attained a result that the theoretical reason will be compelled to recognize. The truths of religion are "value-judgments," gained under the guidance of the moral consciousness. 14 It is the absolute worth of Christ, measured according to our highest standards of value, which justifies our giving him the supreme place in our lives and in our thinking. Nevertheless, that to which we have been led under the guid- ance of our moral consciousness is no mere series of postulates, projected out into the dark- ness, like the rays of a searchlight, by the energy of our own consciousness. It is a tremendous and overshadowing fact, which no criticism can wear away the moral personality of Christ. On this fact we can build, through it our weak- ness is changed into strength, from it we have positive evidence of the nature of the Infinite. Faith is thus no longer the heroic, but grim and acrid determination of the will to act 'as if the great aspirations of our moral nature were true. It is rather an experience of personal fellowship with one in whom the life of God 34 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT stands revealed a fellowship conditioned upon our active seeking and fidelity, but yielding the support of an indubitable and soul-satisfy- ing response. And while a recognition of the truths of faith cannot be forced from the theo- retical reason, neither on the other hand can a veto be interposed from that quarter, when once it has been acknowledged that the sphere of the theoretical reason is limited to the under- standing of phenomena according to the laws of mechanical causation. We now have followed the highway of thought pursued by Kant and the Ritschlians far enough to permit us to stop and ask how we are situated with reference to our ultimate object of pro- gressing toward the solution of human problems. The fact of fundamental importance is that the critical philosophy brings us to a great point of vantage for dealing with the problems of life when, with however great reservations, it recognizes faith as a primary principle of knowl- edge. It is true that in admitting faith to be needful for solving such problems as have to do with man's relation to the universe as a whole we must surrender the claim, which absolute 35 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS idealism makes, that the oneness and spirituality of the universe can be demonstrated with logi- cal necessity. Thus we seem to lose ground. But in compensation for this we gain the recog- nition that through religious experience rela- tions to reality and ranges of truth are opened to us that can be gotten in no other way. And this strengthening of the claims of religion itself ultimately leaves spiritual values more firmly established than abstract demonstrations possi- bly can. In this respect the transition from intellectual- istic to practical philosophy is like the transi- tion from the monarchical to the democratic state. At first thought government seems to be rendered more unstable, when the absolute decrees of the few are replaced by the suffrages of the many, but in the long run it appears that the greater stability goes with the more plastic organization. So the kingdom of truth, domi- nated by the speculative intellect, may become a republic of truth, where each man's faith counts in the settling of issues, with the happy result that the great interests at stake are rendered not less but more secure by the change. 36 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT The transition of which we speak, however, is made by the critical philosophy only in half- way fashion. The theoretical reason, by which scientific knowledge is attained, has a realm to itself, in which faith finds no place, and the practical reason likewise claims a realm to itself, where faith is active, but which scientific knowl- edge must not invade. Thus the two depart- ments of reason are supposed to maintain a gigantic reciprocal quarantine against each other, on the theory that each is healthy and immune only when the other is held firmly aloof. This is the fatal defect of this type of philosophy from the stand-point of the seeker for the solutions of human problems. Every solution that may be gained is neutralized in its value by this schism in the mind's own nature. When the practical nature speaks the theoretical nature listens in grim silence but makes no re- joinder; when the theoretical nature utters its conclusions the practical nature stands with far-away gaze, seeming not to hear at all. Reason is thus portrayed as a kind of Aus- tro-Hungarian empire without even a Franz Josef to preserve outward unity. Such a 37 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS view as this tends to paralyze the search for truth altogether, or else to make men settle down to the pursuit of one of the two types of truth to the practical exclusion of the other. The Kantian theory has been strong because it has been so faithful to the separate interests of the mind, each in its turn, but it has made it inevitable that we should seek through other theories to secure a greater adjustment and uni- fying of these interests. As for the positions at which the Ritschlians arrive by way of the critical philosophy, they will come up for especial discussion in the next lecture. We therefore will pause here only to point out two things. First, it was inevitable that a new treatment of positive Christianity on the general principles of Kant's philosophy should replace Kant's own meagre treatment, in view of the great development of the science of history since Kant's day. The enrichment of the idea of faith, and the appeal to moral and religious experience as the veri- fiers of our practical postulates, are natural re- sults of the new place of history in our world of thought. Secondly, while the Ritschlians have 38 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT strengthened the realm of practical knowledge by their appeal to history, they still retain the dualism between practical and theoretical knowl- edge, and this is a most serious embarrassment to them, for it follows them into the field of his- tory. According to their doctrine history is strictly a theoretical science. The historical treatment of the faiths of the past is supposed to have nothing to do with their claims upon us, and to be concerned only with describing those faiths in their causal connection. On the other hand, all practical and religious judgments are perpendicular to the plane of historical thinking. They perforate it, so to speak, but they have no organic connection with it. The result is that they leave the Christian's appeal to the personality of Christ unsupported by the general history of religion. It is left to stand as a sheer datum, re-enforced only by the claim that our theoretical reason cannot deny it. But can our religious thinking rest here ? I am convinced that it cannot, but that our estimate of Christ and of Christianity must be tested and supported by relating it to the history of religion in general, and that it must be de- 39 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS fended upon the principle that religion is a vital and permanent function of the human spirit, organically related to all its other great functions, and therefore jointly with them a source of truth. Let us recall the most general results of our discussion thus far. The great contribution of absolute idealism toward the solution of human problems has been the conception of the imma- nence of God, but the value of this conception is neutralized by the doctrine that God must be conceived as a timeless Absolute; and the reason why absolute idealism creates such a dilemma is to be found in the purely intellectualistic method that it employs in gaining its ultimate truths. The contribution to human problems in the teachings of Kant and the Ritschlians which we have been led to emphasize are, on the one hand the recognition of the moral con- sciousness and of faith as indispensable sources of knowledge, and on the other hand the appeal to the life of the Christian and the facts of Chris- tian history as having the authority of expe- rience. But here, again, we have found a fatal neutralizing factor in the sharp separation be- 40 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT tween scientific knowledge and that gained in the religious realm. With these main charac- teristics of the two types of thought already discussed in mind, let us turn to consider the third highway of thought. Ill It must be recognized at the outset that the highway of pragmatism is in process of con- struction, and those of you who may have en- deavored to traverse it, and who protest that it is still in a somewhat corduroy state, cannot be reproached for your jolted feelings. On this account it may seem hazardous to bring it into comparison with the more established highways; nevertheless, if in the end it may possibly lead us to straighter thinking, we should not leave it unexplored. Here, however, as in the case of the other types of philosophy, we must confine ourselves to the few main features most impor- tant from the stand-point of our general theme. 15 The pragmatist holds that will is more fun- damental than intellect in our human nature. He regards man as first a being of action and THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS then a being of thought. He challenges the theory of the mind still dominant in philosophi- cal and theological circles, because it is based too exclusively upon the mind of the theorist himself. It is not unnatural that the theorist, engaged, as he is, almost solely in intellectual work, should regard the intellect as an end in it- self. But the pragmatist insists that, pardon- able as such an error may be, it is only another form of provincialism. If we look abroad at the actual workings of man's conscious life, and if we reflect upon its history, we cannot fail to see that the will is the more elemental and persistent part of our nature, and that it is the basis for the intellect. Man is primarily a being of instincts, appetites, passions, aspira- tions, strivings, deeds, and it is only with ref- erence to this maelstrom of psychic activity that the intellect can be understood. Hence it must be regarded as secondary to the will, and derived from it. A genial but acute critic of human nature is reported as saying, in discuss- ing the fitness of a certain man for a position that was to be filled: 'He is all right in a way, but he hasn't the modern conveniences for think- 42 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT ing/ 3 Now the pragmatist claims that, from the stand-point of the entire history of con- sciousness, thinking as such is a relatively modern convenience. That is to say, it pre- supposes an active life of considerable com- plexity, and is the outgrowth of such a life. In accordance with this emphasis on the primacy of the will the pragmatist holds that all our knowledge is essentially purposive in character. 16 The reason for its existence is that it helps us to adjust our lives to their environ- ment and to develop more fully our latent capacities. Life, to be sure, expresses itself spontaneously, and much of its adjustment to environment is effected by instinct. But then we get some rebuff; our action suddenly be- comes futile, or something comes in to balk it. The palatable sweets make us sick, the rain- bows we chase elude us, our own familiar friend lifts up his heel against us. These experiences set us thinking. The thinking means that we hesitate or halt in our action, let several alter- natives arise in our imagination, and then give free course to one of them. Each of the ideas that arise in the mind at such a time is a cue 43 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS to possible action, and it is in their competition with each other for the right of way that the thinking consists. It is out of such a process of reflecting and experimenting with reference to some desired end that all our knowledge comes, and hence its purposive character never should be lost sight of. No matter how abstract an idea may be, the pragmatist tells us that this purposive quality still clings to it. An abstract idea is like a label on a drawer, which shows us at a glance what is in store for us if we penetrate further. It is a symbol, which stands for a large mass of concrete experience, as a baggage-check stands for baggage. When we have gotten the proper symbol, we can turn over the more bulky articles for which it stands to the mechanical and habit- ual parts of our natures, assured that they will be delivered to us again as we need them. Some of these symbols serve a purpose only for a short time, and then pass out of use. Others are in constant demand, and without them we could not transact a single item of the business of life. In the latter case we are apt to forget that their only worth is in what they represent, just as we 44 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT sometimes forget that money merely symbolizes actual goods. But the fact remains that no abstract idea or system of ideas is an end in itself, but only a means to guide us to certain concrete experiences and practical activities. On the basis of the positions just stated the pragmatist proposes his test of truth. He tells us that the truth of an idea is to be determined by its fruits for life. 17 To what practical re- sults does an idea lead ? When we have found that out, we have the means for testing its truth. The truthfulness of a chart appears in the accuracy with which it enables the navigator to discriminate between the course that leads to shipwreck and the one that leads to the de- sired port. The truthfulness of a diagnosis consists in the power it gives us to treat the disease, or to prevent it the next time, or to anticipate the results of a surgical examination. The truth of a political policy consists in the reforms it makes possible and the development of freedom and power to which it leads. Does an idea enable us to anticipate what the facts are, or to get into harmonious relations with them, or to control them ? Does it satisfy some 45 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS need of our natures, or release new energies within us ? Does it contribute to social unity and progress ? In short, does it work ? Such are the criteria by which the truth of an idea is to be measured. The last mentioned way of expressing the pragmatic test of truth has brought down upon it much criticism. It is objected that the truth of ideas cannot be tested by the way in which they work, because ideas that are exactly op- posed to each other will be found to be workable by different men according to their several points of view. The pleasure-seeker finds that a certain idea works well for the simple reason that his views of life are frivolous, while the philanthropist reaches an entirely opposite con- clusion. So, according to such a test the vicious and the upright, the egoist and the patriot, the pessimist and the man of faith would each be able to make out an equally good case for him- self. In justice to the pragmatist, however, it must be explained that he never has supposed the question of truth to turn upon momentary satisfactions, or upon those that belong merely to one side of our nature or only to a single in- HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT dividual. The pragmatist recognizes that there is an existing order of things in the midst of which ideas must work, and that the in- terests of a man which claim satisfaction are numerous and of varying importance, and he requires an idea to work from the stand-point of society as well as from that of the individual. As well might one say that in a democracy every one is a law unto himself as to say that accord- ing to pragmatism individual caprice or arbi- trary desires are the standards of truth. The pragmatist tests ideas according to their power to promote fulness of life, and only those ideas which do this "on the whole" and "in the long run' have permanent validity. Hence the pragmatist approaches the whole question of knowledge from the stand-point of evolution. He holds that the entire body of our knowledge is the result of an evolutionary process, and that this process is still going on. Even our most fundamental axioms are regarded from the same point of view, with the result that, like many a titled family, they are found to have had the humblest origin. 18 But this dis- covery, according to the pragmatist, has the 47 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS effect only of brushing aside a certain artificial authority claimed for these axioms, and does not impair their real value. To this particular as- pect of the pragmatist's doctrine, however, we shall have occasion to recur in the third lecture of this course, and so we need not linger upon it now. After this brief sketch of pragmatism let us proceed to an estimate of its worth, at the same time filling in certain other features of it as we go on. We see that the pragmatist makes experience the final court of appeal, and con- ceives reason to be auxiliary to experience as a whole, no matter what the objects we are seek- ing to know may be. But what we should note is that he conceives experience in the broadest possible way. It is by no means merely a matter of the five senses, but is something in which all sides of our natures are involved, and in which all our interests and faculties are interwoven. Not only do the laws of the under- standing play their part, but also our moral and religious attitudes as well. Moreover, these mor- al and religious attitudes are not simply matters of subjective experience, but are genuine factors 48 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT in the process of obtaining objective knowledge. Loyalty to a moral conviction helps to make that conviction true. Active faith in the pres- ence of an unseen Spiritual Power places the soul in a position to realize the existence of such a Power and to gain insights into its nature. In short, the way we react on the universe is of decisive importance in determining whether or not we discover its deeper meaning. 19 Thus pragmatism gives full scope to the insight, which was recognized partially by Kant and has been developed by the Ritschlians, that faith is an indispensable pathway to knowl- edge, and that, consequently, religious ex- perience is an irreducible source of philosophy. The awe with which we are rilled by the beauty and vastness of the world, the sense of life's mystery, the solemnity of moral conviction, the prayers that are irrepressible, the steady sense of fellowship with a Great Companion, the personal energies released or controlled by such experiences these are facts of which the pragmatist is bound to take cognizance, and which may become the source of principles that are fundamental for his interpretation of the 49 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS universe. Not that religious experience can be taken uncritically. Its great variations in value must be freely recognized, and nothing must be used dogmatically. Of even our highest experiences we should speak as Para- celsus spoke of himself: 'Just so much of doubt As bade me plant a surer foot upon The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid The fierce and flashing splendor, set my heart Trembling so much as warned me I stood there On sufferance, not to idly gaze, but cast Light on a darkling race." Such an attitude is but the humility arising in every religious soul which confesses of the object of its faith: 'his ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts/ 3 But with all due recognition of the inferior and unworthy types of religious experience, and with full acknowledgment of the intellectual humil- ity which normally goes with the religious con- sciousness, it still remains true on the principles of pragmatism that a function so vital to hu- manity as religion has a right to play a most important part in determining our conceotions 50 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT of the universe and its relation to man. This recognition of religion as an integral factor in the discovery of truth counts heavily in favor of pragmatism. A second significant fact about pragmatism is that it removes the difficulty which prevented Kant from giving full value to the knowledge gained through .faith. That difficulty, as we have seen, was the dualism according to which the realm of faith and that of theoretical knowledge were sharply separated from each other. Pragmatism does away with this dualism by showing that faith enters to some degree into all our knowledge. It maintains that the fundamental principles of science, such as the uniformity of nature, are matters of faith, for though verified every day, they never can be completely verified nor given an absolute ab- stract proof. 20 We assume or believe in the truth of these principles, because without them we can make nothing at all out of our world, and for that very reason we see that they are postulates of the mind; in other words, they always retain a certain element of faith. Again any new doctrine about nature, like the theory THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS of evolution in its modern form, arises first as an hypothesis which becomes the working faith of certain men. Their faith leads to a long process of observation and experiment, which may result in the hypothesis becoming a gen- erally accepted theory; but even then it remains to some extent a matter of faith. The same quality of faith comes in play when a well- established law appears to be contradicted by certain new facts. The mind is not content simply to make a debit entry against the law, but, persisting in the belief that the law is uni- versal, strives to bring the opposing facts into line with it. Many of the brilliant successes of science are due to just such an exercise of faith. This recognition of the element of faith which enters into all knowledge makes it pos- sible to do away with the dualism between science and religion, and therefore constitutes a strong argument for pragmatism. In contrast to apologetics, which has tried to adjust merely the results of science and faith, and to the criti- cal philosophy, which has kept them rigidly apart, and to absolute idealism, which makes 52 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT faith a crude substitute for philosophy so far as knowledge is concerned, pragmatism shows that they are organically interrelated, and thus preserves the mind's vital unity. A third characteristic of pragmatism should be emphasized for the sake of comparison with one of the points brought out in discussing ab- solute idealism. Pragmatism accepts without reserve the reality of time. Time is real for every consciousness, that of God as well as that of man. Hence one of the great difficulties presented by absolute idealism that it could not successfully represent God as immanent in history is removed by pragmatism. To think- ers of the pragmatic school the chief grounds for the belief in God always will be the evi- dences of his active participation in the world of human experience, and their conception of God will remain inseparable from such mani- festations. The pragmatist asks in regard to the idea of God, as in regard to all other ideas, what does it practically mean ? And the an- swers that count for the most are furnished by the experience of moral salvation through trust in God, and the progress of mankind which 53 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS such a trust has brought about. Immanence in history is thus inseparable from a pragmatic conception of God. 21 One other point is of especial importance. The method by which pragmatism tests and interprets truth is essentially historical. It not only studies how ideas function in our minds, but it traces out their workings in his- tory. 22 The way in which an idea appeals to you and me is by no means an adequate test of its worth. We must study in history the spir- itual trend which it represents, and the values which it has produced or destroyed, for only then shall we be able to see what it really sig- nifies for us and to take the attitude toward it which will lead to the best results in the future. History is the laboratory in which spiritual ex- periments are made and the meaning of great ideas is worked out. It is history rather than logic that shows the indestructible worth of the family, the importance of basing govern- ment on nationality, the relation of art to eco- nomic life and of philosophy to free institutions. All our actual problems, to be sure, concern the future, not the past. But the principles on 54 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT which the future should be dealt with are larger than the intellects of any one generation can invent. We must find them emerging from the past, and must use them in the light of the values which they there have revealed. The consequence of this historical character of the pragmatist's method with which we are most concerned here is that it requires him to treat the history of religion as one of the great sources of the ultimate practical truths about the universe. 23 This attitude is one greatly needed in our time. For more than one generation the history of our own faith, and of religions in general, has been investigated with the utmost skill and with great success. But neither the special students of this history, nor the other thinkers who took account of their results, have realized the full significance of this work. It has been regarded too largely as bearing to practical religion a negative rela- tion perhaps even being destructive of faith, as the extreme conservative has thought, per- haps merely removing misunderstandings and liberating faith, as the progressives have main- tained. It has not been recognized for what 55 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS it really is one of the great means of testing and establishing spiritual truth. But when one thinks of the actual history of religion, can one regard it as indeed a source of truth ? Such an innumerable host of wild, aimless prayers; so many ages of fruitless cere- monial; such an endless succession of sacri- fices on uncounted altars; so vast a mass of superstition, mythology, useless custom, mean- ingless sacred writings, vain dogmas! Yes, there is much that is strange and depressing in this history, but is it any the less the devious pathway by which the race has been moving up to God ? Have not the prayers of the past engendered in man a purer hunger for God's presence ? the ceremonials given him a finer reverence and a more worshipful heart ? and the sacrifices strengthened his sense of obligation to an unseen world ? And may not we, like our Master, sift from the superstitions, mythol- ogies, and dogmas the few great truths on which hang the whole law and all of life for man ? Nor is this all, as we well know. Above the general level of the world's religious life rise the great prophetic personalities, like Al- 56 HIGHWAYS OF THOUGHT pine peaks towering into the light of sunrise above valleys still shrouded in twilight and mist. And pre-eminent among them all stand the Hebrew prophets and psalmists, the divine Son of Man and his apostles, in whose utterances and lives we find depicted the life eternal. In this history there is a demonstration of the great truths of the spirit such as no logic can furnish, and such as can be dispensed with by no age of the world, not even the last of those bright centuries that our present time can fore- tell. We have seen reasons for believing that this third highway of thought retains the advantages offered by the other two and at the same time avoids certain grave difficulties which they in- volved. It makes religious experience an ir- reducible source of truth, which absolute idealism fails to do. At the same time it does away with the dualism between faith and knowledge, by which the Ritschlians are still hampered, despite their emphasis upon faith as a source of truth. Further it makes it possible for us to conceive of God as one who is gen- uinely immanent in history, which absolute 57 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS idealism, though standing sponsor for the conception of immanence, cannot really accom- plish. Finally it does justice to the historical character of religion, and brings out the im- mense practical importance of the study of religious history. There are indeed certain positions taken by leading pragmatists that will require our critical scrutiny in a later lecture, but so far as a method and a theory of truth are concerned, it would seem that we have ample reason for choosing pragmatism as the highway along which our thought should move in the discussions that are to follow. II THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL ^ I A HE solution of every man's problem in life is ultimately an individual matter. In the last resort it is some experience that takes place within a man's own soul, some saving reinforcement of his inner life, some silent but momentous uprising of inward spiritual en- ergy which breaks the tension within him and opens again the pathway of action and growth. And if for any one life's problem never gets solved, but remains rumbling and heaving be- neath the surface or subsides altogether, it is because he has not been able to open his soul to the liberating insight or reinforcing impulse at the timely moment. It therefore is impossible for theology to fur- nish ready-made answers to the enigmas of life. At best it can only put men on the road to dis- covery. It may introduce them to the great 59 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS laboratories of the spirit, make them familiar with the resources there, place in their hands the apparatus devised by the original souls of the past, and help them to undertake their own experiments with as much wisdom and skill as possible. But this should be the limit of its endeavors. In times past theology has as- sumed to do more than this. It has conceived that its task was to compile an answer-book covering all the sums that man is set to do. And since in these days it no longer undertakes to furnish such a book of answers, it is much discredited in certain quarters. But after all it seems plain that to guide the actual spiritual researches of men, to no matter how small an extent, is the nobler though more modest task, and it is solely with such a purpose as this in mind that I have ventured to take up the theme of these lectures. Accordingly, after having discussed the most important methods of ap- proach to human problems, as we did in the last lecture, our object now must be to fix in view one of the most fundamental of those prob- lems, and then to ask what aid theology is able to render toward its solution. 60 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL The questions as to what are the true ends of life ? what are the real and dominant forces of the world ? what are the abiding realities in the flux of things ? these are among the most persistent questions that the human spirit asks. Every illusion outlived, every passion forspent, every futile endeavor or rude betrayal that we experience, forces from us such questions. They are unescapable, and in all save those who stifle them they engender a longing for the things that do not pass away. The more in- tensely moral the nature of a man the more insistently do such questions and longings arise. Are they not the most earnest souls we know who, in the midst of quiet conversation on the deeper meanings of life, sometimes break out with startling intensity, 'Oh, if I could only know! I believe I can will and do gladly, but how I long to know surely what to do!' Per- haps there are few deeper glimpses into the moral yearnings of man's heart than those which such questions afford. Yes, we may thankfully say that the souls are not few in this world that will live gallantly and die cheer- fully for a cause. But must they not know 61 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS that they have a cause ? Truly here is a human problem. When it is felt in its length and breadth it resolves itself into man's longing for the Eternal, the soul's hunger for God. What has theology to say to a problem like this ? Nothing glib and conventional, let us hope. He who could approach so supreme a question with anything like jaunty assurance would be one to Peep and botanize upon his mother's grave. The first obligation of the thinker in the field of religion is that he should inwardly apprehend the problems of life in their universality, for only so will he be able to discern the signifi- cance of the solving truths when he comes upon them. But the very fact that our problem is a universal one means that the great of all ages have wrestled with it, and that we may become heirs of their victories. The chastisement of our peace has been upon the suffering servants of the Lord, and with their stripes we are healed. The undertaking of this hour is therefore to consider certain typical forms of answer to the question: Wherein may man have an experience 62 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL of the Eternal ? We will consider three types as the ones making the most important claim upon our attention to-day. According to these types the experience of the Eternal may be found in mystical states of consciousness, or in historical revelation, or in the development of moral personality. We will take up these answers in the order given, and accordingly will estimate first the claim that mystical experience constitutes the supreme type of relation to God. The mystic is the radical in religion. He seeks to gain the experience of the Eternal in a form utterly pure and undefiled. His ideal is to apprehend God immediately and without the admixture of any other experience. His vision of the Infinite must be without horizon, without contrasting forms of light and shade, the simple undiversified beholding of pure and ineffable glory. Such an experience cannot come through the activity of the will, for the human will, with its strivings, its failures, and its only partial successes, is the most finite part 63 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS of man's nature. Neither can such an experience be gained by the intellect. The intellect can only know about reality, but cannot place us in con- tact with it. Hence our intellectual natures can simply adumbrate the Infinite, but cannot enable us to lay hold of it in actual experience. For these reasons the mystic turns to the life of feeling for the experience that he seeks. Here the vaster possibilities of the soul are believed to dwell. Our life of feeling is not a matter of metes and bounds, as are the activities of in- tellect and will. It is the door of the soul through which the life of the Infinite can enter, it is the organ of divine knowledge. For the full- grown mystic, however, the feelings in which the divine knowledge is really attained are something more than those that suffuse our daily life of thought and action. They displace this every-day life, or rather they fulfil and submerge it, bringing insights that to the intellect are in- expressible, and a fulness of life that the will can never gain. They lift one out of this shad- ow-world of time and sense into the very pres- ence of pure and infinite Being. When the mystic experience reaches its height it becomes 64 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL a state of ecstasy, in which the soul swoons to outer realities, but becomes immeasurably alive in the realm of the Spirit. And though even the adept in mystical religion can remain in the state of rhapsody but for a brief space of time, yet he lives the rest of his life in the light of what such states have brought him. They repre- sent the essence of religious experience to him, and thought and volition come to be regarded primarily as means for their reproduction. So in general we may say that the mystic finds the experience of the Eternal in exalted states of feel- ing, which are marked by the immediateness and sufficiency of the relation to God that they are felt to involve, and by the unutterableness of the insights that they are believed to bring. If such are the characteristics of mysticism as an experience, we next may ask to what con- ception of God it leads us ? Here is one of the baffling traits of mysticism. As its sense of God grows rich its conception of God becomes poor. No attribute that we can ascribe to him really applies, because he is above all attributes. The way to a knowledge of him is the way of nega- tion. Personality, spirit, goodness, love these 6s THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS must all be denied of him because he is beyond them all. We are to pay homage to our king by throwing our most priceless treasures into the sea, as mere baubles unworthy of him. If thought would praise God, let it become dumb. Let its noblest achievements be written upon the choicest parchments and then burned as incense to the Most High. The powerlessness of thought to make any contribution whatever to man's experience of the Eternal, when that ex- perience reaches its higher levels, is one of the tenets of mysticism. If we turn to the ideal of life which mysticism fosters, we find it in harmony with the traits already noted. The concentration of religion in intense states of feeling results in an attitude of detachment from the world and from social relations. This is nowhere more noticeable than in Thomas a Kempis, whose mysticism is of a practical rather than of a speculative type. Thus for example he writes, " For what is it to thee, whether a man be such or such, or whether this man do or speak this or that ? Thou shalt not need to answer for others, but shalt give account for thyself. Why therefore dost thou 66 - THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL entangle thyself? ... Do thou keep thyself in perfect peace, and let go the unquiet, to be as unquiet as he will." 1 The true goods are within the soul, and all outward matters, even includ- ing the concerns of other people, are a distrac- tion and a hindrance. The affairs of the world, and the noisy strivings and clamor of men, are jarring discords to the ear intent on catching the entrancing harmonies of the soul. The mystic bears the stress of the world patiently and meets with faithfulness the inevitable claims of men, but he does not give to these outward and social concerns a positive religious meaning. They play no direct part in his experience of the Eternal. Just as the choicest works of art know only the touch of the master's hand, so the mystic considers that the soul which is to ex- press the thought of the Infinite must suffer as little as possible the defacing touch of the world. What then is the mystic's thought of the soul itself? The soul, being essentially one with God, is thought of by the mystic as no less in- capable of definition than he. Indeed it is in reality nothing distinct from God. As for our individual selfhood, inasmuch as it denotes a THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS certain measure of separation from God it is intrinsically evil, as all that separates us from God must be. This is an ever-recurring thought in that well-known manual of mystical piety, the Theologia Germanica, as for example in the following passage: 'A man should so stand free, being quit of himself, that is, of his I, and Me, and Self, and Mine, and the like, that in all things, he should no more seek or regard himself, than if he did not exist, and should take as little account of himself as if he were not. . . . Likewise he should count all the creatures for nothing. What is there then, which is, and which we may count for somewhat ? I answer, nothing but that which we may call God." 2 In such a passage, it is true, the terms have an ethical as well as a metaphysical mean- ing, but the metaphysical meaning is the funda- mental one, and according to it finiteness, and all that goes to make up individuality, is evil. But on the other hand this evil of finiteness and individuality is only an illusion. We are really of one substance with God, and only the persistence of the illusion of selfhood prevents us from complete oneness with him. As long as 68 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL the illusion continues we maintain our separate- ness like cakes of ice in the open ocean. Our substance is the same as that of the vast reality on whose bosom we are upborne, but an inward hardness and coldness preserves us in the iso- lation of selfhood. But let this inward rigidity liquefy, and instantly our likeness to the Infinite is revealed through the merging of our being in his free flowing life. The true nature of the soul therefore is realized only in those mystical transports in which the boundaries of our finite individuality fade away, and the illusion of self is dissolved by the reality of God. We need not follow the teachings of mysticism further. In fact its positive teachings are necessarily few, and the writings of mystics consist largely of a richly varied reiteration of such modes of thought as we already have sketched. But we should not fail to note that the influence of mysticism is much wider than the prevalence of the foregoing teachings. Ob- jection might be plausibly made to the place we are giving mysticism in our discussion on the ground that the pronounced mystic is rarely to be met with. But if the mystic himself is THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS rare, belief in mystical religion is widespread. Many people believe in mysticism who are not themselves mystics in any marked sense. 3 Their lives are more or less tinged with mystical feel- ing, and they have come to think that the real way to a deeper experience of God is through an enhancement of these feelings. They dwell upon such as they have, and find the true ful- filment of what is feebly expressed in them in the glowing utterances of the adept. If perchance they are largely shut out by tempera- ment from definite mystical experience the result is often unfortunate. They develop a dissatis- fied frame of mind, full of unhappy yearnings and futile aspirations, and their lives become dank and unwholesome, like that of plants in a cellar, by reason of the dimness of the light in which they dwell. Nevertheless they do not cease to acknowledge the mystical type of re- ligious experience as the authoritative one. It is noteworthy, too, that the non-religious often join in this recognition of mysticism as the authentic form of religion. In this very view, indeed, frequently lies one of the chief reasons for men's aloofment from the religious life. 70 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL They assume that religion is essentially mysti- cism, but they find in themselves no capacity for mystical experience, and they do not feel dis- posed simply to borrow their religion from those who do have such capacity. Thus since the way to personal religion seems closed to them, they prefer to have no part nor lot in at it all. This singular combination of authoritative- ness and ineffectiveness, which mysticism pre- sents when it confronts general human needs, raises a serious question as to the validity of its claim to be the true experience of the Eternal. It leads one to suspect that there is a liberal mixture of truth and error in such a claim. There may be many entrances into the temple of the divine life, and the postern door of mysti- cism, while accessible to the cloistered few, may be ill-adapted to the needs of the multi- tudes who throng the thoroughfares of life. Let us therefore proceed to an estimate of the teachings of mysticism, in order that we may discover, if we can, the sources of its strength and weakness. One of the undoubted values of mysticism is its strong emphasis on the personal nature THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS of religion. In times when ecclesiasticism is rampant, and forms and ceremonies threaten to monopolize the religious life of men, it not infrequently is the mystic who keeps alive the religion of personal experience. In the monk's cell, in the chair of philosophy, at the shoemaker's bench, or gathered together in communities as ' Friends of God' or * Breth- ren of the Common Life," the mystics have done their work of preserving religion as direct relation between man and God. The mystic will know nothing of vicarious religion. To his mind a religion must vitally affect a man's personal life, or else it is unworthy of the name. Whereas under the care of sacerdotalism religion becomes little more than a classical language, understood by the few, formally honored by the many, but the living speech of no one, the mystic preserves it as the vernacular of the soul, the natural vehicle for the expression of its highest life. Mysticism has rendered equally great service in resisting the forces that tend to secularize re- ligion or to reduce it to mere dogmatism. The mystic is the uncompromising though gentle 72 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL foe of all formalism. Religion must be inward and spiritual, or it is nothing. Forms of doc- trine are but the anatomy of religion, moral deeds are but spiritual gymnastics, so far as the doer is concerned, unless both the doctrines and the deeds are vivified by the devotion of the heart. The mystic's voice is raised in warning against an ever-present tendency in our churches to repeat the follies of our material civilization. Just as we denude nature to enrich ourselves, when all our wealth comes ultimately from nature, just as we multiply factories beside streams that are running dry, so the mystic shows us that we are prone to rob faith of its meaning while we elaborate its forms, and while constantly enlarging the institutions of religion, to drain away its power. Mysticism recalls us to the simple, primitive forces of re- ligion, the inward life with God, purity and sin- gleness of heart, the concentration of spiritual energy on the things that abide. Perhaps to mysticism more than to any other type of faith is due the insistence that the true goal of religion is simply and solely the experience of the Eter- nal. This is in itself an important service, how- 73 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS ever much the mystic's conception of the nature of such experience may need to be corrected or enlarged. But if the emphasis on personal and inward religion is the strength of mysticism, and the source of its authoritativeness, what are those elements of weakness which prevent it from meeting more widely the needs of men ? The weakness of mysticism appears when we note that in its zeal that religion should be inward and individual it sacrifices its active and social aspects. The mystic somehow allows himself to believe that personal religion can be detached from social activity, and while of course social relations cannot be suspended, they are never- theless not constituents of the religious life, and may be regarded as a positive hindrance to it. He allows the contrast between the inward and the active life to become so sharp that religion cannot overcome it, so as to include both within itself. He feels most keenly man's need for spiritual unity and peace, and he rightly per- ceives that religion is the true means for gain- ing them, but he fails to see that the peace which comes through the suppression of life is not 74 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL a victorious one. The mystic's solution of life's problem is too much like that of the world- ling. The latter escapes unrest by smothering the aspirations of the inner life, the former by silencing the appeal of the outer world. But a religion that cannot glorify our common life, and that surrenders the task of conserving, uni- fying, and enhancing its concrete values, is lack- ing in those qualities which command the posi- tive allegiance of men. According to the prag- matic test of truth it falls short at the most vital point. Now while these passive and non-social char- acteristics are by no means to be found in all whose religion has a mystical vein, yet they are the normal outcome of the teachings of mysti- cism as a definite type, so that it naturally tends to foster them. The assumption that it is es- pecially through feeling that we enter into re- lation with the Divine, and the consequent exalt- ing of feeling over against knowledge and will, the emptying of the conception of God of all definite meaning, accompanied by the assertion that he is immediately apprehended in the mystical state, the obliteration of selfhood, the 75 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS view that finiteness is the essence of evil, but on the other hand the assertion that this evil is an illusion these are teachings ill-adapted to foster the production of moral and social values. The morality which mysticism culti- vates is more negative than positive, and it has to do far more with individual than with social salvation. The mystic dreams of a realm 'be- yond the good and the bad," and in his trans- ports he enters into this realm, but in so doing he is as one who ascends a mountain so far that he goes down on the other side. Anything beyond the realm of moral distinctions is below that realm in its practical effect on the lives of men. In the last analysis there is too little moral earnestness in mysticism to allow it to justify its claim to be the essential and suffi- cient way to the knowledge of God. 4 II Great as is the value of mysticism, its weak- nesses are so fundamental as to compel us to seek for a broader basis for the religious life; and so we come to the second of our three THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL answers to the question, Wherein does man have experience of the Eternal ? From the point of view of this second answer such an experience is gained through historical revela- tion. This answer brings us much nearer than the other to the essence of Christian experience. A religion that is to shape the conduct of men and mould society must have its foundations deep in the soil of history. God does not come to men merely in vague and formless feelings, but has made himself known explicitly in histori- cal events and personalities; and only through such tangible disclosures of God do we get a solid basis for strong and hopeful living. Glo- rious indeed may be the mystic's moments of vision, but the days between are often dreary and empty of meaning, and his hours of de- spair are terrifying. The author of ' 'Theologia Germanica" describes experiences of spiritual desolation, which are as acute as the loftiest ecstasies, so that the former are termed "hell' : as the latter are called "heaven"; and then he adds, "So long as a man is on earth, it is possi- ble for him to pass ofttimes from the one to the other; nay even in the space of a day and 77 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS night." 5 The Christian life of fidelity and ardor and manful struggle in the cause of the Spirit is not to be sustained by relying mainly on such a fluctuating revelation as this. It has a far better basis in the clear and adequate dis- closure of God that history affords. Christian- ity is distinguished among faiths as the pre-emi- nently historical religion, and this will remain true of it so long as it preserves its essential nature. In the mighty past were fashioned for us great continents of faith, and voyage as men may in search of those islands of the blest about which they dream, the continents will still remain the home of their largest and richest life. But our conception of what historical revela- tion is has undergone great changes in recent years, and while these changes have brought with them much gain they also have left not a little confusion. A few generations ago his- torical revelation meant that a certain limited portion of human history had been set apart by God as a means of revealing his will. This period gained its peculiar character because the ordinary processes of history were in important respects suspended. It possessed extra-terri- 78 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL torial rights in the general realm of human affairs. The events which happened in it were not subject to the same laws as prevailed over the rest of the empire of history, but were deter- mined by the direct intervention of a higher power. It was in this manner that men tried to explain why the history and literature of Israel and of the beginnings of Christianity had a significance for them such as belonged to noth- ing else in human history. But there were two great difficulties with this conception one scientific and the other re- ligious. The first of these difficulties was that such a revelation was not really historical at all. It was an episode in history but not an integral part of it. The episode indeed was regarded as the truly important thing, as compared with which the rest sank into insignificance, but it was not part and parcel of the total fabric of his- tory. But science could no more be prevented from the historical study of the events of reve- lation than of any other portion of the story of human life, and if it were to study these events, it must use the same methods used elsewhere. So the Chinese Wall around the Celestial king- 79 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS dom proved ineffective against the invasions of modern historical science, and the Christian scholar as well as the secular historian now treats the Old and New Testament narratives in a genuinely historical way. The other difficulty is that such a conception of the divine revelation did not accord to the men of the present any real experience of God at all. The authority of the past revelation was so absolute that all thoughts of God's living presence among men were completely over- shadowed. Or at best it was only in the throes of conversion, or in certain sporadic experiences of special illumination, that God was thought of as coming into direct relation with the human soul. The ordinary daily experience of men was written in cipher, the only key to which was the revelation of long ago. The genera- tions that were dominated by this view, with all their unworldliness, yet allowed the world to loom so large before their vision as to eclipse the direct outshining of the divine presence and love. Rejecting then this conception of an histori- cal revelation, we are confronted with the 80 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL question, Is a genuine revelation of God in his- tory thinkable, when once we have accepted the scientific conception of history ? Has not his- torical science rendered the idea of revelation an anachronism ? If all things are alike the product of development, it would seem that we could speak of no portion of history as a revelation. Is not the idea of an historical revelation a contradiction in terms ? We appear to be shut up to a dilemma: either we may be- lieve in a revelation at the price of supposing a violent break in history, or we may hold to the continuity of history and sacrifice the idea of an historical revelation in which case we might be led to revert to mysticism as the only possible type of an experience of God. We must look to the theologians of the Ritsch- lian school for help at this point. Among modern theologians they are the ones who have had the courage to grasp this dilemma by both horns. They are bent on doing full jus- tice to the claims of history, and yet they also maintain with unabated vigor that Christianity is a religion of revelation. They stand in reac- tion against a merely rationalistic treatment of 81 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS history and against finding in mysticism the typical form of man's life with God, as de- fenders of the belief in historical revelation. 6 What the Ritschlian first brings home to us is that all knowledge in the religious realm is conditioned on faith. This is a truth which we already have found reason for adopting, and which is most essential for the solving of our problem. The attitude of the soul is all- important, when spiritual realities are to be perceived. Religion requires openness of soul, the free yielding of the will, an attentive absorp- tion in the things that appeal to us as the high- est, in order that the true purposes of God may be perceived and his full power felt. In- deed the importance of having the right inward attitude, if the truth is to be seen, is not confined to religion alone. The lover of color and form finds beauty in the wide marshlands and the mist-draped mountains, when others see only empty wastes and dull weather. The subtle ear of the musician hears sweet chords and rich overtones in the human voice, which are lost on the heavier sensibilities of the untrained. The kind heart discovers a noble tenderness 82 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL and sense of honor in rough commonplace men, and a delicacy of feeling in women who may have no beauty or grace of person. So the mind of faith perceives the august beauty, the vast, soul-compelling harmony, the infini- tude of tenderness, grace, and power that pervade the world through the presence of the Eternal. But religious faith in its normal form is not a matter of mere mystical feeling. This the Ritschlians earnestly insist upon, and rightly. However mystical feeling may accompany it or result from it in people of a certain tempera- ment, faith itself is something more definite and practical. Nor is it a merely arbitrary function, without any real basis in rationality. Faith at least in the Christian sense of the term has its roots in our moral nature. It is the active adoption by the soul of what the moral reason requires. In other words faith is fundamentally faithfulness, the principle of loyalty in man's nature, an active willingness to obey the best that one knows. The Ritschlian finds the phil- osophic interpretation of this characteristic of Christianity, as we saw in the last lecture, in 83 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Kant's doctrine of the practical reason. But the pragmatic point of view, to which our dis- cussion led us, differs on this point chiefly in giving a wider scope to faith. Faith on its higher levels remains essentially the same in quality from either point of view. The re- quirements of our moral natures set us our deepest problems, and thereby become our highest test of truth; and as a consequence of this faith becomes the true pathway of spiritual discovery, the necessary condition for a knowl- edge of God. It is the moral nature that gives especial urgency to the problem with which we are seeking to deal in our present discussion. As morally earnest men we need to believe that the values we achieve will be conserved by the processes of the world, and we yearn for a living relation to the Power that controls these processes for an experience of the Eternal. 7 And now to turn to the question of a revela- tion of God in history. The mind of faith finds in the historic personality of Jesus Christ the adequate revelation of God. This is the centre of the Ritschlian position, and here in- deed we secure the needed corrective for mys- 84 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL ticism a clear and definite basis for a religious life in which the possibilities of the soul may be developed to the full, and power may be gained for complete devotion to the service of men. It is through Christ that we are set free from sin and given victory over the world. He introduces us into the more abundant life, even the life eternal. Christ is the great solver of human problems. Through him we come to know God as nowhere else in the world. Every earnest soul that has once faced the great moral issues of life will find in him the supreme evidence that there is in the universe a divine power able to deal with those issues. Every soul that is weak and dejected or oppressed with guilt will find in Christ the fullest assurance of the Heavenly Father's nearness and forgiving love. These are the great convictions of the Chris- tian consciousness, and their basis is an historic fact. He who looks to Jesus as the full and sufficient revelation of God has a sure founda- tion for his faith. The fluctuations of his own feelings do not paralyze his religious life, be- cause it is not primarily through his own sub- 85 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS jective feelings that the knowledge of God comes. The revelation in Christ is an un- changeable fact, and it abides as an unfailing source of insight and strength for all who feel their need of God. Thus as a matter of experi- ence history and revelation intersect in the person of Jesus Christ. 8 But the revelation in Christ is historical in a deeper sense than this, as the Ritschlians clear- ly bring out. Christ's disclosure of the divine life was wrought out in and through a partici- pation in human history. This is especially evident when we consider Christ's life in com- parison with the ideals of mysticism. Jesus stood in the midst of human affairs, believing that this was God's world and that to live with God was to do a work in the world. He did not feel that the world must be regarded as a mere illusion in order that one might be united with God; he believed rather that the kingdom of God should come on earth. To his thought God was not accessible solely in weird ecstasies of feeling. His experience brought him some- thing far richer than that an ever present sense of fellowship with God in his daily life. 86 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL There was all the difference between Jesus' fellowship with God and that of the mystic, which exists between the patriotism of a senti- mentalist and that of a statesman. The former exhausts itself in mere feeling, the latter never. The statesman's patriotism comes out in positive active service to the life of his country or he is no true statesman. So with Jesus fellowship with God meant the service of men. It was precisely in and through his work in the world that he maintained his filial relationship to God. All spiritual relationship, according to his teaching, is a matter of doing God's will. 'For whoso- ever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother/ 3 Hence the Ritschlians rightly lay great emphasis on Jesus' fidelity to his vocation as one of the main ele- ments of his revelation of God and his saving power with men. 9 It is true that the ends which Jesus sought to accomplish by his life and death were purely inward and spiritual. His work was to awaken men's faith, to release them from the despond- ency of guilt and the bondage of sin, and to bring them into the filial life with God. Never- THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS theless his own spiritual life found its true being and expression in this spiritual service that he rendered to others, and hence the life to which he sought to bring other men was a life with God realized in service. The revelation through Christ is thus one that appears in the very heart of human history, and yet one that lifts our vision above the chance and change of merely human events to princi- ples which are eternal. It brings healing and forgiveness to bruised and heartsick and guilty souls, and in the midst of the distractions, strug- gles, and frustrated hopes of life it revives us with a consciousness of freedom and power. In the redeeming might of Jesus' personality the soul of his disciple finds full satisfaction, and gains a deep assurance of the Heavenly Father's personal fellowship and love. Such then is the answer of the theology of the Ritschlians. They point out first that accord- ing to the actual nature of religion as seen in the fully developed form of Christianity, re- ligious knowledge is conditioned on moral faith, and secondly, that for the mind of faith there is a full and adequate revelation of God in Jesus THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL Christ. Historically, indeed, this revelation precedes our faith, and is the power which awakens it, but as an inward experience of the soul the revelation begins at the moment when faith is awakened. The value of this answer there is no reason to call in question; on the con- trary, there is every reason to emphasize its truthfulness. The place given to faith and to the authority of actual experience is of vital im- portance, in order that religion may be recog- nized as an essential and integral part of the functions of the human spirit, and the histori- cal character of the revelation in Christ is our safeguard against the vague, ineffective and negative character of mysticism. But now the question arises, Is this all that theology should do toward solving our great problem ? We have seen good reason why theology should not assume to gain its funda- mental truths by purely intellectual processes, apart from religious experience. On the con- trary, religious experience must be the funda- mental basis of all the conclusions of theology. Nor can we call in question the sufficiency of the faith in Christ, unaided by direct theological THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS reflection, for countless hosts of his followers. Most certainly religion can sustain itself widely, and doubtless for considerable periods, without a conscious theology. Nevertheless the func- tion of theology, when it is needed, is to work out reflective interpretations of religion, which shall strengthen and guide the life of faith, and if possible enlarge the boundaries of truth. The Ritschlian theology only partly fulfils this function. It registers the great values of our religion, and it does police duty to prevent these values from being encroached upon by other interests. It has done great service in bringing out the essence of Christianity, and in freeing it from subjection to metaphysics. But in ruling out all metaphysics, and in insisting that Christianity should have no other support than its own self-witnessing, it has curtailed the power of theology to serve religion. The suffi- ciency of unreflective faith for many a life, and the fact that faith is an essential condition of gaining truth in all religious lives, should not blind us to the fact that faith has its hours of exhaustion, in which the intellect can bring it support, that it needs the discipline of the in- 90 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL tellectual nature, and that under the guidance of the intellect it may go forward to new dis- coveries. Moreover, there are many minds in which faith can be evoked only by a rational appeal to the intellect. 10 No Ritschlian, to be sure, would dissent from these statements in their general form. In fact, he would make them the principles of his work as far as his theories would let him. It is his Kantian theory of knowledge which hampers him. Having accepted the separation between the theoretical and the practical reason, as a kind of Monroe doctrine, necessary for the de- velopment of faith, he is then too conscientious to make incursions into the eastern hemisphere of thought. Having warned the theoretical reason off from the domain of the practical reason, he cannot consistently appropriate anything of value from the realm of the former. Hence his hostile attitude toward metaphysics in theology, which prevents him from giving faith the support of a speculative interpretation. But pragmatism is not under these limitations. It neither insists that the theoretical reason can deal only with phenomena, nor maintains that THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS the rational nature is divided into two separate realms, the theoretical and the practical. It can admit practical interests into its metaphysical decisions, and it can be as speculative as it pleases in the practical realm, so long as its final test is found in the facts, and in the prac- tical workings of the truth. Thus it appears to make possible a fuller interpretation of re- ligious experience than can be gotten under the limitations of the critical philosophy. A prag- matic defence of a religious truth would have four features. It would show that it was postu- lated by man's moral nature; it would freely recognize the authority of the inward experience in which that postulate is felt to be satisfied; it would set the truth to be defended in the framework of religious experience in general through the comparative study of religion; 11 and finally it would fit it, as far as possible, into the rest of our experience by some form of em- pirical metaphysics. 12 Now the Ritschlian de- fence of the historical revelation of God in Jesus covers the first two parts of the prag- matic line of argument, but for the reasons given it has practically to ignore the last two 92 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL parts. In order, therefore, to get the full sig- nificance of the experience of God through his- torical revelation, we must undertake, if only in a fragmentary and suggestive way, to supple- ment the Ritschlian argument. But in so do- ing we are led on to the third answer to our general problem mentioned at the outset, which finds an experience of the Eternal in the de- velopment of moral personality. Ill The materials for the first stage in the pro- cess of constructing the frame-work of religious experience, which at the same time shall enable us to see the revelation given in Christ in its true significance, lie close at hand. They are given in the Pauline conception of the Spirit. This conception is of course ignored by no theology, and yet theology in general has not given it a central place, and that of the Ritschlians is no exception. But it was in this conception that Paul found the interpretation of the new life with God which Christ had made possible for him. 93 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS The Christian conception of the Spirit is the product of the transformation effected in Paul by the life and death of Jesus Christ. The conception thus received its characteristic ex- pression as the result of what a personality of infinite depth, poise and inspiring power ac- complished in another personality that was in the grip of moral despair. This fact is of the utmost significance to us in trying to understand the idea. The moral deed of the one assuaging the moral pain of the other; a life that was per- fectly whole ministering to a life that was sick; a will with resources that could know no de- pletion rescuing a will that was fiercely wasting its energy in a fruitless struggle this was the personal experience of Paul through which his understanding of the Spirit was reached. But this experience of the apostle Paul was not that of being overwhelmed by a tidal in- undation, such as the mystic knows, only to have the flood draw back again into the great deep, leaving a wan and exhausted soul behind. In- stead, it remained as a permanent principle of life. It revealed to Paul a righteousness of God from faith unto faith, and enabled him to under- 94 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL stand that saying which is written, 'the right- eous shall live by faith." Thus there came to this Jewish rabbi a sustaining, illumining and con- trolling power such as all his knowledge of the law had not enabled him to discover. He was lifted so far above his old life that he could ex- claim, 'It is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me." Now in this new life into which Paul had come two elements were perfectly blended the fullest and richest moral activity and the con- sciousness of the indwelling presence of God. And in just this union lay his experience of the Spirit. Herein consists the profound significance of the Pauline conception of what the Spirit is. The conception stands for the full union of what mankind is sa prone to conceive of only in greater or less isolation. We have seen how the mystic thinks that God is most fully in him when there is the least of individual thought and action, and on the other hand we know well the ever-present tendency to self-sufficiency 95 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS that goes with human achievement. But here we are brought to the insight that man attains the most intimate relation to the divine in moral activity, and on the other hand that the higher righteousness comes only through the life of faith. The deep meaning of the Chris- tian doctrine of the Spirit is that the fullest and inmost experience of the Eternal comes in the development of moral personality. There is a vision of God that is given in the opening flower, in the grace and freedom of the bird, in the ceaselessly heaving sea, in the pageant of day and night, and of springtime and har- vest. There is a sense of God that comes in the hush of meditation, in the breathless moments when we hear "the deep pulsations of the world," and feel that our souls for an instant are in tune with the mighty rhythm. But there is a life with God that comes only to those who can read the human heart, with its divine possi- bilities and its dire needs, and who with a pa- tience, an unswerving fidelity and a tenderness of love to be learnt only from the Master, and through whatever agony and bloody sweat, can be servants and saviors of men. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL But here we are met with an objection. Very lofty morality often exists in men who have no consciousness of a relation to God, and this fact is held to show that such a synthesis of reli- gion and morality as we have found in Paul's doctrine of the Spirit is accidental, and gives us no essential truth. The common but unlovely custom when dealing with this objection is to depreciate the moral worth of such men as would be cited most naturally in its support. But nothing could be more futile, and the true method is exactly opposite to this. It is our privilege as Christians to believe that all who live the Christ-like life profoundly and intensely have actually a vital relation to the Spirit of God, even though they are not conscious of such a relation. Surely the relations of even the most religious men to God are much larger than they are aware of. The morality of the skeptic, then, so far as it is a real contribution to the cause of righteousness and not a mere float- ing on the surface of the average social ethics, may be welcomed as the work of the Spirit. But more than this many of those whose morality is not sustained by the conscious 97 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS presence of God long most earnestly for such a sustaining power. Listen, for example, to these words of Romanes, written at the time that the new theories of evolution had under- mined his former religious faith: * Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the 'new faith' is a desirable substitute for the waning splendor of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to confess that with this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its soul of loveli- ness; and although from henceforth the precept to 'work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly in- tensified meaning of the words that 'the night cometh when no man can work/ yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible." 13 Indeed it is difficult to imagine that anyone who is genuinely laboring for moral and social ends could fail to welcome the great THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL truths of religion, if he felt that they were suffi- ciently substantiated. What architect can have the joy in erecting an exposition building, whose destruction is contracted for before the roof is on, that he would have in rearing a cathedral for the centuries ? Surely a generation that mourns the vandalism of the Romans, the Goths and the Moslems, and that is ransacking the dust heaps of Egypt and the mounds of Greece and Mesopotamia in order to find and preserve what remains of the treasures of the past, cannot be indifferent to the question whether the uni- verse as a whole is preserving and developing moral values, or grinding them back into primi- tive desolation as by slowly advancing conti- nents of glacial ice. Morality cannot be in- different to the truths of religion, for if it were, it would be indifferent to its own fate. If there is a supreme moral power in the universe, then we may hope that our little deeds for righteous- ness will be taken up and preserved through its vaster achievements, but if there be no such power, our moral work is but a making of play houses on the seashore for the next tide to wash away. 99 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS In the long run, therefore, morality needs the support of religion, and we may rest in the faith that the truly moral life, however its hori- zon may be clouded in, does indeed have a vital relation with God. But now let us note how the Pauline doctrine of the Spirit sets the historical revelation in the personality of Christ in its true perspective. In the light of it we see Jesus, not simply as a fact in history, nor even solely as the mighty par- ticipator in historical events and shaper of his- torical issues, but also as the interpreter of his- tory. In him we see perfectly revealed the forces that have caused whatever real progress the world has made, the energies of moral per- sonality. In him we apprehend what the in- carnation of the Divine really means, and as he captivates our souls and enlists them in the cause of his kingdom, we become conscious of the reality and meaning of the Infinite Moral Life with which he had constant fellowship. Jesus has his supreme significance for us be- cause he reveals God to us as actually imma- nent in human history, and so also as im- manent in our present world of toiling, aspir- 100 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL ing, struggling men. No one, therefore, really receives a revelation of God from Jesus Christ who does not also have an experience of God through the development of moral personality, and on the other hand no one is genuinely de- veloping in moral insight and power, who does not, just so far, enter into spiritual kinship with Christ. The Infinite Moral Power whose life was manifested to the full in Jesus, becomes for all who will to live the life of faith an in- dwelling Spirit. Thus does the profound thought of Paul bring out the meaning of his- torical revelation in its practical, personal appli- cation. And now, having seen how the revelation through Jesus and the believer's personal ex- perience of God blend in the conception of the Spirit of God as immanent in the life of faith, we must go a step further and consider the Christian experience as thus understood in its relation to other types of religion, for this will lead to a further interpretation of the positions reached. The place of the religion of Jesus among the faiths of the world is determined at once by 101 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS the fact that he transformed, and so perpetuated, ethical monotheism. What a world-moulding achievement this was can only be indicated with the utmost brevity here. India has given the world two great faiths, the product of a people naturally religious, developed with mar- velous subtlety and variety by minds of the greatest acuteness, and yet ending in confusion, ineffectiveness, and stagnation, because when wrought out to their final meanings they became nothing but a mystical monism. Their faith in deity became a worship of blank oneness, in which all ethical distinctions were engulfed, and the practical morality which they cultivated was in principle merely negative. In the Con- fucian system we see the opposite error. Posi- tive morals and the social order are everything, the consciousness of the divine is practically eliminated, and as a consequence legalism and traditionalism gain undisputed sway. No other great system of faith save the Christian has been able to rise above both these errors. The Persian religion developed a sharp dualism, in which the two great powers of good and evil confronted one another. In Neo-Platonism 102 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL Greek thought ultimately passed into a mysti- cal monism akin to that of India. In Judaism the tendency was again of the opposite kind that is, to allow morality to become barren and legalistic because of the lack of inwardness and intimacy in men's relation to God. Though formally the heir of the ethical monotheism of the prophets, Judaism had found it impossible to preserve the two elements of the prophetic faith in living unity. In Mohammedanism the same error exists, only to a far greater degree. Allah, though the one God of all the universe, yet has little or no relation to the inward life of man. It was through Jesus Christ that this problem of the ages was fully wrought out for men. In the first place he gave to every conception and to every aspect of religion an ethical meaning. He saw life in its unconventional, human re- lations, and knew that there was the real need and the real opportunity for religion. He showed how impossible it was to be worshipful toward God and arrogant toward men. He repudiated the righteousness that could not forget itself but that could be oblivious of 103 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS human need. He saw nothing to admire in the character that was exemplary but pitiless. He was outraged by those who substituted pedantry for religion, and who were more concerned to keep their robes unpolluted than to cleanse and uplift the lives of men. He showed that the institutions of religion, prayer, fasting, and the Sabbath were for promoting a man's character rather than his reputation. According to his thought the conception of neighbor could not be limited by caste or blood, but was to be applied whenever relations of kindness and helpfulness were possible. And finally the great ideas of man's sonship and God's kingdom were given an entirely ethical content. Godlikeness was the test of sonship to God, and doing the will of God was what constituted entrance into his kingdom. o Thus the religion of Christ was through and through the religion of ethical personality. But in the second place, Christ carried the religious consciousness into every experience and function of life. The clothing of the lilies and the storms on the sea of Galilee, his daily work in the world and the cup pressed to his lips in the garden all alike were from the hands of 104 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL the Father. Hence the filial spirit was to be carried into every relation of life. The Pharisee thought that God had withdrawn from his world since the glory had departed from Israel. Jesus taught men to know that he was always near. The ascetic held that the things of the physical life were a barrier to the life with God. Jesus taught that they were all from God, and all to be used in his service. The formalist forgot that God was nigh to the heart of man. Jesus made men mindful that the Father seeth in secret. The Jew could not believe that God looked with equal favor upon himself and upon the Gentile. Jesus saw his Father's hand dis- tributing sunshine and rain to all alike, and taught that many should come from the East and the West and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God. The filial life was open to all because the Father's love was all-embracing. Thus the religion of Christ was through and through a religion of the divine immanence, and one in which this faith was applied no less to human history than to nature. In these two great characteristics of Jesus' 105 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS work we see the transformation which he wrought in ethical monotheism. He effected a synthesis between the religion of divine imma- nence and the religion of ethical personality, thus protecting the latter from legalism and the for- mer from vague mysticism, and giving to both an unparalleled depth and intensity. This synthesis he accomplished not at all through outward ecclesiastical reform, nor through the introduction of novel ideas, but rather through his own personality. In his life, in his practical spiritual attitude toward God and nature and man, he brought into full and unimpaired unity spiritual truths that the world's greatest souls have never been able, apart from him, to lay hold of except in fragmentariness and isolation. God ever present in his world and capable of being known in inward experience, and yet as the consequence of this no deprecia- tion of individuality and personality but their full ethical development, for in precisely this process of development God is most intimately known this we may well believe to be Christ's supreme achievement, as viewed in the light of man's religious history. 1 06 THE EXPERIENCE OF THE ETERNAL Our pragmatic method requires us to take one step further in this discussion, but that must be reserved for the next lecture. But we already have expressed, even though in merely outline fashion, the answer which Christian theology has to make to the great problem with which the present lecture has been concerned. Man has knowledge of God in many ways, but the fullest experience of him is conditioned upon the historic revelation in the personality of Jesus Christ. Through the unique worth and power of his personality we are introduced into that religion of the Spirit, in which ethical monotheism finds its fulfilment, and according to which we have an abiding fellowship with God and Christ through the development of moral personality. The great apostle of the religion of the Spirit teaches us that there are three things that abide faith, hope, and love- and in proportion as these great fruits of the Spirit of Christ are realized in us we have an experience of the Eternal. 107 Ill ONE INCREASING PURPOSE ' I A HERE is no better evidence of the practical nature of truth than the fact that the great insights have to be won afresh by each succeed- ing generation. Just as a boy cannot be sim- ply told how to live by his father, but must learn his final lessons in the same way that his father did in the actual struggles of life so one age cannot simply repeat the life of a preceding age, but must go on to grapple with new con- ditions as the preceding age had to do, thereby making its own contribution to the world's slowly accumulating treasuries of wisdom. If, indeed, an age attempts to do merely the work of repeating the thoughts and deeds of the past, it foredooms itself to defeat. It becomes an age in which there is no open vision. It for- sakes the fountain of living waters and hews out for itself cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold 1 08 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE no water. It becomes like a royal house that outlives its real power. The pageantry of the past is preserved, but its motives, its real in- spiration and meaning, are lost. The time which a succeeding age imitates is always a creative time. It therefore can be imitated in the true sense only as it is allowed to inspire the succeeding age to some new creative work. This does not mean that the achievements of the past ought to be steadily dropping out of our sight. On the contrary, the lapse of time often enhances their significance. As you sail down the Potomac from Washington to Mount Vernon the objects that filled your horizon when you were in the city shrink into insignifi- cance, but Washington monument looms up before you taller than ever. So there are in the past monumental personalities and achieve- ments whose significance grows upon the world as its horizon widens. If the attempt merely to repeat the past inevitably results in spiritual deadness, the notion that the past may be ignored and forgotten is a sure recipe for spir- itual smallness. In truth, it is only by appro- priating the values of the past that progress 109 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS can be made, and every truly spiritual achieve- ment is costly and rare enough to abide in the world's memory as a thing of fadeless glory. When Prometheus stole fire from heaven he gave to mankind a power that it never will cease to need. So the prophetic personality, who is able to kindle the human heart with the original divine fire, never will be outgrown. But just because our inheritance from the past is so saturated with the qualities of per- sonality, so alive with human aspiration and endeavor, it is impossible for us to make it our own except as it becomes to us the source and nourishment of fresh aspiration, of new en- deavor, and of a type of life that has its own touch of originality. Truths won by faith must be known by faith, and the faith by which the truths of the past are appropriated remains in the soul as a capacity for the gaining of new truth. Thus does the spirit of humanity move forward and upward on its never-ending flight. What is true of all other values is true of that supreme spiritual achievement of Jesus Christ on which emphasis was laid in the last lecture the blending of faith in the divine immanence no ONE INCREASING PURPOSE with loyalty to the supreme worth of ethical per- sonality. It is in the unique poise and richness and power of Jesus' personal life that this truth receives its fullest expression. Both of its ele- ments stand out distinct and clear in his teach- ing, and in his life they both blend with each other. In the perfect trust, obedience, and love of his active personal life we find the synthesis of what the world heretofore had been able to realize only in a partial and one-sided way. The truth which Christ gained for the world was thus conditioned in a marked degree on the attitude of faith, which characterized all his life. The appropriation of this truth, there- fore, by other men and other times, is likewise conditioned on their having a similar attitude of faith. The personality of Christ stands forth as a fact in history, assuring us that the truths he won are available for man. It stands be- fore us also as the great lodestone of faith, draw- ing all men to itself and imparting to them its own power. But the full significance of Christ's personality, and the reality and depth of the life with God which he opens to us, can be realized only in a progressive way, as our lives in THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS are kindled with the same faith which he pos- sessed. But the task of appropriating afresh the fun- damental truth of the Christian revelation has been peculiarly difficult for our own age. The vital quality which is essential to Christian faith has had to be maintained in the face of an enor- mously altered view of the world. Each age is confronted with new conditions, but our age is confronted with a new universe. We have come to see that our universe is not a thing neatly bounded, but one that stretches out infinitely in space. We no longer think that this earth on which we live was called into be- ing at a flash, but recognize that, by ceaselecsly revolving in the lathe of nature, it has been slowly fashioned into its present shape. We have ceased to suppose that the various species of plant and animal life were first constructed and then set in motion, but instead conceive that they came to their present form gradually, through a countless succession of births and deaths. The story of the human race is no longer regarded as a succinct volume with well- defined chapters; we are aware that it has to be 112 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE caught from the incantations of the savage, and the runes and sagas of the Norsemen; that it has to be deciphered from broken monuments and torn parchments; or compiled from the traditions of ancient custom and ceremonial; that it has to be pieced together out of myth- ologies and sifted out of the debris of human superstition and bias. Thus while our world is infinitely richer and more varied than that of preceding ages, it is also vastly more perplex- ing, and the task of giving to it a religious in- terpretation has been correspondingly difficult. We doubtless all know from experience some- thing of the problem which arises when we undertake to adjust the ideas of faith to our modern conception of the world, but that it may be brought before us in all its force, let me recall to your minds those lines of Matthew Arnold in his poem entitled 'Dover Beach, in which he gives us a kind of elegy of faith : Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, "3 " THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in. " The sea of faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world. " Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night." What the poet so sadly mourns for is just that blending of the loftiest moral idealism with the consciousness of a God present in the world, and intimately related to the life of man, which so uniquely characterizes Jesus. The moral ideal- ism is strong with Arnold, but the assurance of the reality and nearness of the divine is not, 114 ONE .INCREASING PURPOSE and at times it disappears altogether. And the source of his gloomy doubt is the apparent aim- lessness of the world. Herein consists the prob- lem with which the discussion of to-day is to be concerned a problem to which the men of greatest moral earnestness are sure to be most keenly alive. Is the world about us governed by moral purpose, or is it the " darkling plain >; of which the poet speaks, where 'ignorant armies clash by night" ? What contribution can theology make toward the solving of this urgent human problem, and toward enabling us once more to grasp with vital faith the central insight of Christianity ? The train of thought we are to consider will lead us to deal briefly with the following topics: 'Changes in the Conception of Natural Law," "The Grow- ing Universe," and " Standards of Truth and Value." I One of the principal sources of the apparent aimlessness of the world is the prevailing con- ception of the laws of nature. These laws are thought of as entirely mechanical in their opera- THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS tion. They are the laws in accordance with which the planets swing, the ether pulsates, the tides ebb and flow. They represent processes that are perfectly calculable and also, so far as their intrinsic nature is concerned, perfectly aimless. 1 According to these laws a thing keeps on doing forever just what it is doing now, un- less it is interfered with by something external to itself. No inherent inward agency is per- mitted in a mechanical system or at least, logically none is admissible, and if any is recog- nized, it soon becomes a troublesome problem, which must be explained away as quickly as possible. Now the aimlessness and the calcula- bility go together. How can you calculate exactly what a thing will do in the future unless you assume that, so far as that thing itself is concerned, it will keep on doing what it is doing at present ? Then if you can find out what other things are going to interfere with it, and assume the same of them, you can make your calculation. But any inherent tendency to follow a certain direction in spite of external influences would throw you off" your reckoning. Thus the more the reign of law is extended, 116 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE the more aimless does the world become, so long as our conception of law is mechanical. If law in this sense is conceived to be unlimited and absolute in its sway, purpose disappears from the universe, and our faith is vain. There remains as little relation between human aims and interests, even the most spiritual, and the processes of the world, as exists between the ambitions of the Arctic explorer and the shift- ing polar ice-pack over which he must travel. A drifting derelict of the sea is not more the plaything of chance, or more certainly doomed in the end to be completely wrecked, than are the spiritual values of mankind in a universe where mechanism is unqualifiedly supreme. But our age is deeply convinced of the reign of law, and hence, if law and mechanism are iden- tical, we are destined to be haunted by the spectre of the aimlessness of the world. There are two ways in which, up to the pres- ent time, faith has striven to make a stand against the conclusions to which the mechanical conception of the world leads. The first of these ways is the one that is traditional with theology. It is the theory of direct creation and 117 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS miraculous interposition. It insists that God at the outset made this world and its laws, and that from time to time he has intervened to set aside those laws temporarily for the purpose of revealing himself and accomplishing the salva- tion of men. The difficulties of this method of sustaining faith were thoroughly discussed by Dr. Gordon in the Taylor Lectures of last year, and hence we need not dwell on them now. 2 On the one hand such a method limits the sway of law in a purely arbitrary way, and so leaves science and faith in direct antagonism. On the other hand it does not rise to the level of the faith of the New Testament, because it fails to realize God's immediate presence in the world and his intimate relation to all our life. The method is becoming increasingly difficult for thinking men, and one of the urgent tasks of theology is to replace it by something more adequate. The second way probably is the one to which the more philosophically minded among us have been brought up. It is the doctrine of phe- nomenalism, or the theory that the universe is done in duplicate. It says mechanism is uni- 118 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE versal in extent, but then it has to do only with appearances. All that we experience is a part of a mechanical system, but the system taken as a whole is only a shadow-world. Behind the scenes is the true world, of which this me- chanical scheme of things is only the manifes- tation. The universe wears a mask, we all wear masks, and even our own true selves are hidden from us as by a veil. It is with this masked world that science has to do, and here it shows mechanical laws to be absolute; but faith and our higher reason assure us that back of the mechanism is another world, where moral and spiritual forces have free play. The value of this method cannot be gainsaid. It has been the resource of too many spiritual thinkers for too long a time to be simply set aside. In truth spiritual realities do not lie upon the surface of experience, nor can the ordinary processes of science be relied upon to prove their existence. But yet it seems as though the time had come for this method to undergo reconstruction. On the one side it leaves too close at hand the question as to which after all is the shadow-world, the mechanical 119 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS order or the duplicate realm of spiritual reality declared to be behind it. If one goes to the extreme of the mechanical view and surrenders psychology, ethics, history, and sociology, all to the sway of the mechanical conception of law, the authority of experience comes to be entirely on the mechanical side, and the insistence that the whole fabric of mechanism is but a shadow becomes exceedingly difficult. And on the other side this view, too, leaves certain barriers in the way of the ethical monotheism of Jesus. The world of our experience and the realm of moral and spiritual reality are related artifi- cially, but they are not, as with Jesus, vitally blended. The empirical world remains in- trinsically aimless, and the realm of spiritual reality is regarded as non-empirical, and thus the two realms remain in practical isolation. It is only by a certain violence of faith that a real religious life can be maintained from this point of view. But of late the whole problem of the relation of moral purpose to the world has begun to take on a different aspect as the result of certain changes that are taking place in the conception 1 20 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE of law itself. These changes have arisen partly from the difficulty of carrying through the me- chanical conception of law, and partly from a new conception of our intellectual nature and its relation to the other sides of our life. The first of these changes is especially em- phasized by pragmatism. It appears in the fact that the laws of nature with which science furnishes us are coming to be conceived not so much as final descriptions of an unchanging order of things, but rather as working theories which are always subject to modification. 3 They are a kind of shorthand in which we sum up great masses of experiences, but other and more improved kinds of shorthand are quite think- able. We employ them just as we employ cata- logues and railway guides and diagrams, be- cause they give us brief synopses of things and help us to arrive quickly at the results which are of most importance to us. So far as they serve such purposes we accept and trust them. They are our methods of handling experience, some of them quite tentative, others so estab- lished as to be almost second nature, but all having an element of hypothesis still clinging 121 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS to them, which is as real, if not as large, as that which attaches to the recipes of a cook-book. It is indeed difficult to imagine that such a law as that of gravitation should ever undergo any modification. And yet science cannot think out its theories without conceiving another sub- stance, the ether, which is mysteriously re- lated to matter, and yet which is not subject to gravitation. Whether the relation of matter and the ether will ever be thought out success- fully, and whether, if this were done, a modifi- cation of the law of gravitation might not result, perhaps no one is at present competent to say. At all events the whole history of the develop- ment of our knowledge of nature justifies us in saying that our system of natural laws is the joint product of the postulates of the mind and the results of past experience, and that in in- terpreting these laws neither element can be safely ignored. Two important consequences follow from recognizing that the postulates of the intellect enter into our laws of nature. One of these consequences is that we can hardly refuse the claim that our moral and religious postulates, 122 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE as well as those of the intellect, should have a share in the final interpretation of the world. Laws derived from nature under the guidance of our intellectual needs cannot veto interpreta- tions of the world formed under the guidance of our moral and religious needs. Just as in our nation, where the final authority rests with the people, no one branch of the government has unconditional power in determining what our statutes shall be, so when it is recognized that the needs of the mind furnish the original clues to the understanding of our world, we see that our intellectual and moral and religious natures all must have a hearing in making up the final account. The other important consequence of the view that our laws of nature are working hypotheses based on the postulates of the mind is that it brings home to us how much of reality is omitted by the most elaborate scheme of laws. 4 A system of shorthand is a device for omitting a great deal which must be restored again when the full copy is made up. The argument of a play abbreviates the actual drama in a certain way, and the dramatic critic's review abbreviates 123 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS it in another way. Both are useful, but neither can be entirely adequate to express the blending of logic and passion which the dramatist origi- nally infused into his work. In a similar fashion the world of natural law is an abbreviation of the real world. Our laws of nature aid us, just as does the shorthand or the argument or the critical review, because they eliminate so much and thereby make a few important things stand out clearly. Thus mechanical and physical laws disregard the qualities of things for the most part, and deal so far as possible only with quantities. Gravity, for example, acts on a tile that gets loosened from the roof and on the body of a man who loses his balance in pre- cisely the same way. But from other points of view the aspects of reality of which mechanical laws can take no account are all-important. Qualities are just as real as quantities, and as we ascend to the realms of life, mind, and morals they become the matters of overshadow- ing consequence. These higher realities can no more be reduced to a scheme that deals only with quantities than the value of genius can be estimated in dollars and cents. 124 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE This change in our conception of the laws of nature does not limit the actual value of those laws at all. As working theories they are to be used for all that they are worth. But the change does open the doorway to faith and to the use of our entire higher nature in the discovery of truth, and it increases our hope of establish- ing a kinship between the soul of man and the world of our actual experience, and of finding in that world a moral meaning. The second change which is coming about in our conception of the laws of nature arises out of the difficulties that the mechanical conception has met with, and affects the most fundamental element in the notion of law itself. It is coming to be recognized that the most general meaning of the idea of natural law is not that an equiva- lence of quantity persists through all change, but rather that a continuity of process exists. 5 In other words we are passing from a me- chanical to an evolutionary conception of law. Scientists have scarcely begun to work out formulas of quantity for a 1 ! the complex pro- cesses of the vegetable and animal world, and of psychology and history. It is most doubtful "5 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS whether this ever can be done. But the facts in these realms are reduced to law in other ways. A continuity of process is traced every- where from the simpler organisms to the more complex, from species to species, from the ani- mal to the human, from fable and mythology to philosophy and science, from tribal custom to the modern state, from gross superstitions and meaningless ceremonials to the pure and be- neficent faith of an ethical religion. The prin- ciple of continuity is thus proving immensely successful in reducing to law great realms of experience with which mechanical conceptions seem utterly unable to cope. Emphasis on this evolutionary conception of law does not require us to disregard the principle of mechan- ism, so far as it has been already established, nor prevent us from using it as a working hy- pothesis wherever it promises to be fruitful. But it does enable us to organize and interpret a far wider array of facts than the mechanical conception, and so proves itself to be more fundamental. Two specific advantages of regarding continu- ity as the essential element in the idea of law 126 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE must be singled out here for brief mention. In the first place, the principle of continuity enables us to recognize and deal with that which is new, according as our experience pre- sents it to us. 6 In a mechanical system that which is new is entirely out of place. Noth- ing can be introduced into such a system, ex- cept it be of the same kind as what is already there, without disorganizing the whole, and nothing new can ever come out of such a sys- tem. But in an evolutionary system novelties are constantly coming to pass. The infinitely varied beauty of flowers in a summer meadow, the strange creatures that pass through the paths of the seas, the wonderful diversity of form and coloring in insect and bird, the beasts of the field, so heterogenous in form, so differ- ently equipped with functions and instincts, the human kind with its unending series of in- dividuals, each differing from every other in features, powers, and personality these are all comprehended by the evolutionist in a single theory, one main presupposition of which is the principle of variation, the constant appearance of newness. All that the evolutionist requires 127 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS is that the coming of the new should not involve a breach with the old, but that the two should be connected by a continuous process. Wherever continuity is traced the practical value of a law is secured, for a principle of con- trol is placed in our hands. 7 Knowing the con- ditions which are antecedent to an event we can foretell that event next time, or reproduce it, as the case may be. And that is just what laws are for. That is the reason for working out the mechanical laws themselves. To be sure, absolute control or calculability, as we have seen, can be had only where the process is mechanical. But then absolute control is, in the human realm at least, just what we ought not to have, nor is it to be expected lower down in the scale in a world so rich in mystery as ours. A second advantage of the principle of con- tinuity is that it is consistent with the idea that the processes of the world have an inherent tendency in a definite direction. A mechanical process, as has been already brought out, is essentially aimless. It also can be reversed at any time. The element of direction is acci- dental. An engine will run just as well back- 128 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE ward as forward, if only there is some force to throw the lever. A grindstone, as perhaps some of us may remember, can be turned both ways. But this is not true of the higher processes of nature. They have a definite direction, and they cannot be thought of as running in the opposite way. Thus Professor Ward, who lays much emphasis on the irreversibility of nature, writes: "The absurdity of a reversal of or- ganic processes is evident, the tree shrinking back into the seed, life beginning in a corpse and ending in a birth, everything genealogical run- ning backward, natural selection and the sur- vival of the fittest not excepted." And going on to psychical processes he adds: 'Facing the future we are efficient, facing the past we are help- less. What is done cannot be undone; over what is still to do we can give or withhold our fiat." 8 Moreover, what makes the reversibility of such processes unthinkable is the fact that the tendency in a certain direction is somehow in- herent in the processes themselves. It consists of an inward, spontaneous pressure along the line in which the process is moving, which ac- tively resists the environment so far as it stands 129 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS in the way. Such an immanent tendency in a specific direction is the presupposition of all evolution. The evolutionist makes much of the struggle for existence, but this implies a will to live on the part of the struggler, and the will to live commonly takes the form of a striving for a fuller life. Higher up in the scale the same principle appears as man's definite conscious purpose to attain an end. Lower down it may be nothing but the crudest and blindest organic want. But everywhere some form of imma- nent spontaneous tendency in a definite direc- tion must be recognized as the basis of any ade- quate explanation. 9 Now this is just what we are able to do, when we realize that continuity of process is the essential element in the idea of law. Immanent tendency, which is so in- consistent with the notion of mechanism, is entirely in accord with the principle of con- tinuity. But this latter principle at the same time accomplishes the purpose for which laws are sought by enabling us to predict and control, and as it does this over far wider ranges of experience than the principle of mechanism, its superior rationality is evident. 130 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE Let us sum up what has been said thus far in regard to the changed conception of law. First, it recognizes that the laws of nature which we formulate are dependent upon the postulates of the mind, and as a result it both leads us to admit the rightfulness of using moral and religious postulates as well as those of the intellect in our interpretation of the world, and causes us to realize that our laws of nature are but the briefest abstracts of a world whose wealth of reality overflows the achievements of the intellect and requires the fullest spiritual experience for its understanding. Secondly, the changed view of law makes the principle of continuity more fundamental than that of mechanism. This makes it possible for us to accept and deal with that which is genuinely new in experience, and it is entirely consistent with the fact that there is an immanent ten- dency in things making in a certain definite direction. Thus the changed conception of law enables us to take an important step toward solving the problem arising out of the apparent aimlessness of the world. It gives support to the faith that the world is the manifestation of THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS one increasing purpose, and encourages us to believe that the progress of science itself will afford important corroborations of this faith. And now we must pass to the second of the topics mentioned at the outset, that of the growing universe. II The prevailing idea that the universe as a whole is static must be counted as one of the things that have made it difficult to deal with the problem of the world's apparent aimless- ness, and that consequently has hindered our age in the full appropriation of ethical monothe- ism. There are two principal forms in which this idea is held. The universe may be thought of as being static in the same sense as a sta- tionary engine. In such an engine the various parts move, but the whole does not. It under- goes no structural change, and it does not move toward a goal. For a universe thought of in this way time would be real, but there would be no progress. The changes that take place within it have no effect upon its structure, 132 . ONE INCREASING PURPOSE and hence it comes to nothing more than it was in the beginning. In spite of the reality of time and change such a universe can ac- complish nothing except slowly to run down. 10 This is the mechanical universe which we have just been considering, and in practical effect it is statically conceived. The other form of the idea that the universe is static is that found in absolute idealism. The static character of the absolute idealist's conception of the uni- verse is bound up with his denial of the full reality of time. If from the metaphysical point of view time is not fully real, then reality is essentially changeless and static, and we have a universe for which as a whole there is no progress. Our immediate task, however, is not to offer a detailed criticism of this idea of a static universe. The mechanical conception has just been criticized sufficiently for our present pur- pose, while the absolute idealist's form of the idea received some discussion in the first lecture and will come up for criticism in the next lecture in connection with our study of the prob- lem of evil. Our present object is rather to THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS bring out, in contrast to the idea that the uni- verse is static, certain characteristics of the conception of the growing universe, for the purpose of showing that this conception can render us important aid in solving our problem. The conception that the universe is growing carries with it, in the first place, the acceptance of the full reality of time. Time is the form of our entire experience, as all philosophers admit, and the attempt to set it aside in our ulti- mate view of reality involves us in the gravest difficulties, as has been shown already in part and as will be brought out yet more fully. In the second place, the conception of the growing universe recognizes that genuinely new things and events are actually coming to pass the very recognition which we have seen is leading to a changed conception of natural law. In the third place and this is the crucial point- this conception involves the belief that the new things and events which come to pass modify the existing order of things in the direction of the enlargement and enrichment of the whole. Thus from this stand-point the universe is in the mak- ing. It has genuine unity now, but a higher ONE INCREASING PURPOSE unity is coming to pass. The oneness of the universe exists now in the sense of continuity. That is to say, nothing affects our universe that is not in some sense a member of it, and whose relations with it are not capable of being traced out as an unbroken process. This is the faith of science, for which abundant veri- fication is being furnished. Moreover the one- ness of continuity is supplemented by much unity of organization, but in this respect the unity cannot be thought of as complete. The universe is in process of becoming organized, and a higher degree of organization is to be attained. In other words, the universe is to be thought of as a living whole, and at the same time as evolving into a still richer and more harmonious form. It is this conception of the universe or one in important respects similar to it which the recent writings of Pro- fessors Hoffding and James support, and vari- ous features of it are to be found in the views of not a few important modern thinkers. 11 Now this conception of the growing universe and the faith of ethical monotheism render each other mutual support, and in bringing out this 135 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS fact we shall find the solution of our problem. Let us begin with the services which the view that the universe is growing can render to ethical monotheism. According to ethical monotheism God is to be conceived of as an essentially active being a being who has real purposes which he desires to have fulfilled, and who is constantly exerting his energy toward their fulfilment, a being whose very essence consists in creativeness, in the joyous and abundant forth-putting of his might for the actualizing of his inexhaustible thought. It is true that theology has been prone to form its conception of God on the analogy of our intellectual consciousness, and so to think of him as a being without activity or change. The pathetic fallacy has betrayed men often, but none more often, or more pathetically, than the theologian and philosopher. But there is small doubt that God, as we pray to him, trust in him, work with him, is to us an active God in the most essential and ultimate sense. To ethical monotheism as a living faith God's being is that of a Will eternally active and creative; it is that of a Life which manifests itself cease- 136 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE lessly in new forms; it is a being of infinite Goodness and Love, seeking to bestow itself ever more abundantly upon its creatures. 12 Now such a conception of God as this really requires the thought that the universe is growing. On the one hand it presupposes that the world should possess continuity and a high degree of organization now, and on the other hand it im- plies that, intricate as the fabric of existence already is, it is to be yet more closely inter- woven and to reveal a yet sublimer pattern. Or to put the same thought in the simpler lan- guage of religious faith, all is from God and all is sustained by him, but not all is according to his will, though that will shall yet be done on earth as it is in heaven. To be most in accord with the faith in an active God the universe must contain the partial realization of ideals that are divine in worth and at the same time the potency of their fuller realization. It must be capable of being interpreted as the expression of one increasing purpose. But it is only a growing universe that can be so interpreted, and hence the possibility of conceiving the universe in this way is of vital importance to ethical monotheism. 137 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS But there is another way in which the idea of the growing universe supports ethical mono- theism. It enables us to establish an analogy between the processes of the universe as a whole and the relations which ethical mono- theism believes to prevail between God and human life. Let us see how this is. The world of nature is continuous throughout, and yet within this world we find the living cell, a centre of spontaneous activity. But the cell in turn is found for the most part as a member of a complex organism, and as such a mem- ber its action, which as compared with the in- animate world is unique, becomes continuous with a higher order of being. As organisms rise in the scale of life we find the cells becom- ing more and more specialized so as to form different kinds of tissue, which in turn make possible a greater variety of organs and a more complex and efficient organism. This ascend- ing process is of course capable of being traced out in great detail, but all that we need to notice is that it is conditioned everywhere upon the formation of centres of spontaneous activity, and the controlling of these centres in the ser- 138 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE vice of the organic life of the whole. In these general features this process is closely anal- ogous to the ideas of ethical monotheism. According to ethical monotheism our being is continuous with the being of God, and yet we are in course of development. Hence there is a fuller unity with God in store for us. It is possible for us to express more of his life, and to be in closer relation to him. But, by virtue of the paradox which is the secret of the re- ligious life, this fuller unity with God comes about only through the development of individ- uality. The more diversified our spiritual interests, the richer and more manifold our insights, the more broadly humane our rela- tions with men, by so much the more is our in- timacy with God made full and deep. 13 It is a grievous mistake to suppose that the indefi- nite personality has the greatest capacity for God, or that vague and inarticulate moods are the sovereign means of communion with him. Rather it is the ripe and symmetrically devel- oped personality which, under normal con- ditions, is closest to God and expresses most fully the mystery of his life. Inarticulate 139 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS moods indeed have their place, as do the soft lights and the incense in the spacious cathedral, but they signify nothing except as they are in- cluded in a nobly designed and well-built char- acter. It is, to be sure, not primarily to great- ness, as we ordinarily conceive it, that the life with God belongs not to greatness understood as a mere matter of the dimensions of the in- tellect or of other faculties. It belongs rather to any personality, no matter what its capacity, which is unfolding into sincere and earnest ex- pression its latent powers. It is in moral growth that ethical monotheism finds the most real and full relation to God, and this is the view which preserves the inwardness of religion and yet makes it accessible to all. Now in the transition from the realm of bi- ology to that of personality and morals of course new factors of great consequence come in. Sen- sation and perception become conscious thought, and impulse and instinct become purposeful action. But this is not the only point in the universe where that which is new has to be recognized, and on the other hand these new factors do not do away with the important con- 140 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE tinuity of process which exists between the lower and the higher realms. This process which is manifest through such wide ranges of reality involves but two stages first, the development of new centres of spontaneous activity, and secondly, the winning of these centres into har- monious relations with the whole, so that they contribute to the enhancement of its life. Low down in the scale this means simply the process of organic growth. On the highest level it means the coming of God's kingdom, for which God himself is striving with all the power of his infinite love. Thus does the conception of the growing universe give support to ethical monotheism and aid us in discovering in our world the evidence of one increasing purpose. But at this point we are naturally confronted with an objection, which runs something like this: granted that the idea of a growing uni- verse as a conception is in accord with ethical monotheism; granted too that it is possible to conceive the universe in this way; and once more, granted that there is much growth in various parts of the universe yet how can it be shown that the universe as such is really growing ? In 141 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS other words, how can we be assured that the whole is actually progressing ? The answer to this question depends on recog- nizing that the conception of the growing uni- verse can be carried out to completion only as a religious faith. By this I do not mean that from the scientific point of view this conception is arbitrary or merely speculative. To the prag- matist all general conceptions of the world, and even all laws of nature, contain an element of faith. Moreover this faith in the growing uni- verse has much to verify it in the realm of natural science. The world as we now find it appears to be the result of a process of growth, and similar processes are still going on. The statement that the idea of the growing universe ultimately takes us into the realm of religious faith means, not that the idea has no verifica- tion, but simply that its fullest verification comes only through religious experience. Thus we are in a position to see how the conception of the growing universe is in turn supported and supplemented by ethical monotheism. The essential thing about ethical monotheism, from the stand-point of verifying the conception 142 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE of the growing universe, is that it takes man's highest experience as his most adequate key to the nature and meaning of the world. It is mindful of the fact that this universe, mys- terious though it be, has made possible the de- velopment of moral life, sustains that life in its activities, and provides for a vastly richer un- folding in the future; and it believes that here is the clue to the structure and purport of the whole. Just as Isaiah is to be understood by his prophecies, Sophocles by his tragedies, Michael Angelo by his Sistine frescoes, Lincoln by his administration, so the universe is to be under- stood by the lofty faith, the spiritual struggles, the embodied ideals, the mighty achievements of patience and sacrifice that the higher ranges of human evolution have brought forth. Hence ethical monotheism declares that Moral Power is the supreme reality in the universe, that a Divine Life pervades the world and takes up all things into itself. Now when one adopts such a point of view as a living and working faith, he is in a position to verify the progress of the world as in no other way. On the one hand the attitude of faith 143 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS brings the soul into harmony with the Divine Spirit, so that it is able to apprehend his revela- tions in things that to others are unintelligible. One who has this attitude has acquired the grammar of the divine language and is able to hold converse with the Eternal. Nature and history and his own personal experience be- come to him a revealing of one increasing pur- pose. All things work together for good to him, the lover of God. The prophetic per- sonality, who is apt to be regarded as too ideal for this material and practical world, becomes to the mind of faith the fullest interpretation of its meaning. The commonplace things and ordinary happenings of daily life are, to the eye of faith, vivid with the Heavenly Father's love. And even amid the fiercest struggles and the heaviest sorrows faith has proven itself able to say, as Jesus did when he spoke of his cross, 'He that sent me is with me; he hath not left me alone." And on the other hand the life of faith, in and through its active endeavors to do the Father's will, becomes itself incorporated into his being in a new and higher way. The infinite thought finds a large measure of ex- 144 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE pression in the actively believing soul, and in the moral energy of such a soul there is a new increment added to the realization of his will. When by faith the human spirit identifies itself with the best that it knows, it becomes a sharer to the full measure of its capacity in the Divine Life, and it makes its own contribution to that higher unity which we call the kingdom of God. Thus in the discoveries and the active energies of faith we gain the fullest verification of the progress of the world, the most conclusive evi- dence that this mysterious universe in which we live is but the manifestation of one increasing purpose. We must now turn aside for a moment to compare our general results with certain views of Professor James, which, as coming from the founder of pragmatism, have an especial in- terest for us in this connection. Professor James designates his view of the universe as pluralism. What he means by this can best be defined in contrast to the type of monism espoused by the absolute idealists. According to this type of monism the universe is timeless and eternally comolete. Pluralism, as defined 145 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS by Professor James, means simply the denial of this doctrine; it denotes a universe that is not timeless and that is incomplete. But such a definition leaves exceedingly vague the question as to what the positive character of the universe is. Pluralism so defined has the widest possi- ble range of meanings, and includes views that are utterly different in character. It may de- note a universe that is a mere sand heap, a multitude of objects with little or no connection with each other, or it may denote a universe that is almost completely unified. As Professor James says: "Let God but have the least in- finitesimal other of any kind beside him, and empiricism and rationalism might strike hands in a lasting treaty of peace." 14 That is to say, such a view would be pluralistic too. Obviously Professor James has formed his defi- nition of pluralism for polemic purposes. It is designed as a means of making war on the rigid monism of the absolute idealists, but as a con- sequence it has little value as a description of a particular, positive view of the world. Now according to ethical monotheism, as we have interpreted it nothing is completely other 146 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE than the being of God. 15 By the energizing of his will all things are originated and sustained. But on the other hand this universe is not fin- ished. Characters at least are still in the mak- ing, and the kingdom of God is far from having fully come. From the ethical point of view it is impossible to say that God is literally and com- pletely all and in all. Thus it would seem that ethical monotheism should neither seek the protectorate of a rigid monism nor allow itself to be stampeded by pluralism, but that it should stand forth as an independent metaphysical point of view. The definition of monism as given by its chief sponsors is too restricted, and that of pluralism is too loose, to do justice to the facts of life when moral and religious experience is included, and we should insist on refusing allegiance to either of these terms till one or the other of them has been remolded and developed in accordance with the requirements of an ethical metaphysics. Another view which Professor James has pro- claimed is that God must be regarded as finite. 16 This he holds to be necessary if we are to think of God as striving for an end not now attained, 147 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS and are to believe with the prophet that in all our afflictions he is afflicted. To speak of God as infinite is to deny that there is anything that he lacks; but how is this possible in a world where time and change are real ? Now there is a purely logical use of the term infinite which does indeed make it inapplicable to God. Ac- cording to this use nothing definite can be affirmed of God, because that would make him finite. None but the pure mystic can find satisfaction in conceiving of God as infinite in this sense. But the more general religious use of the term presupposes a certain definite- ness in our idea of God. Thus in Christian thought God is conceived of as Spirit, as Love, as essentially active in the realization of the good. And then the conception that God is infi- nite stands for faith in the supremacy of such an active loving Spirit in the world of our experience, and in the adequacy of his power for bringing that world to its true goal. This would seem to be a pragmatic use of the term. According to the pragmatic method every term must be traced up to what it stands for in concrete experience. Following this method we may 148 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE say that the idea of infiniteness as applied to God stands for man's continued experience that God's power is adequate for all his need, and for the faith thereby awakened that the same power is adequate for securing the final triumph of good in the world. An essentially active God must be conditioned at every moment on his previous acts. The only important ques- tion is, will he through the whole series of acts achieve his goal ? The conception that God is infinite should not be understood to mean that for him there is no real achievement, nor that his achievement is free from striving, but should be employed only as an expression of the faith that his triumph is sure. Thus the relation of God to his universe is both immanent and transcendent. God is immanent in his universe because all its proc- esses have their origin and support in his eternal activity. And yet we distinguish the universe from God because the forth-putting of his energy results in the formation of subordinate centres of activity, which through the process of evolution become in turn organized into living unity with him, so that his immanence is main- 149 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS tained. God is transcendent because the universe is the manifestation of one increasing purpose, and because that purpose, and the power for its realization, are eternally existent in God. 17 Ill We must now proceed to our third topic, that of standards of truth and value. The topic is introduced here, not for the purpose of giving it the treatment which it intrinsically deserves, but for the reason that a remaining aspect of our problem requires us to take it up for brief consideration. We have sought to solve the problem of the world's apparent aimlessness by combining the fundamental conceptions of Christianity with an evolutionary philosophy. This appears in our adoption of pragmatism, which teaches that the whole body of truth is evolving, and also in our acceptance of the idea of a growing universe. But there are very many who will protest that such a solution for such a problem is thoroughly specious. They will urge that in order to know whether things are evolving or not one must have a standard. ONE INCREASING PURPOSE Mere motion is not necessarily progress. If the landscape were really whirling by us when we travel in an express train, as it appears to do, even the fastest express would make no more progress than a man in a tread-mill. In order to show that motion is indeed progress one must measure it by some standard that is fixed. Hence if one supposes everything to be evolving the whole body of truth and the entire universe it may turn out that nothing is evolving, for the supposition leaves one with- out any absolutely fixed truths and values to serve as standards of measurement. It is not legitimate to escape from the difficulty by appealing to the Christian religion, for by the hypothesis that too is a part of the supposedly evolving process. Accordingly it will be urged that the foregoing reasoning has furnished us no practical solution of the problem of purpose in the world, because all efforts on such a basis to determine what is the purpose of the world are doomed to failure for lack of fixed standards of truth and value. Now we all may agree that too much emphasis can hardly be laid upon the importance of trust- THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS worthy standards of truth and value. Stand- ards in the spiritual realm are no less important than in the mathematical and mechanical realm, and constant efforts should be made to perfect them. But the character of the stand- ards needed in the spiritual realm would natu- rally be somewhat different from those required in dealing with mechanism. The question, then, for us to weigh is whether an evolving process cannot itself furnish us with standards, and whether standards which come from within the process itself are not necessarily more serviceable than those which are absolutely fixed and rigid, and therefore essentially ex- ternal to the process to be measured. There are three considerations that come up for our attention in this connection. The first is that though the whole body of truth be growing, the rate of growth in its different parts varies greatly. There are always truths which are practically stable, and others which are plastic and mobile, and the former furnish a basis for the growth of the latter. Let us take an illustration from the organic world. In every highly developed organism we find a 152 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE skeleton and around it a mass of tissues and organs endowed with varying degrees of plas- ticity and facility of movement. Without the skeleton the organism would be shapeless and inefficient; without the mobile parts the skeleton would be inert. All parts, including the skele- ton, grow and change. In fact absolute fixity in the skeleton would be as fatal as would too little stability. But in the relative stability of the skeleton we find that which makes possible vigor and accuracy of action. So in the field of truth we have our axioms, which form the stable framework of our thought, and then the more plastic portions, varying all the way from opinions, poetic fancies, statistics, customs, and individual rules, up to scientific laws, moral sentiments, philosophic and religious insights. The axioms serve as the basis for the development of the complex system of which the whole body of truth consists. They are the standards by which we test our experience, and which make possible its coherence and unity. The pragmatist simply points out that these standards have come to pass by a process of growth, 18 and that there are signs that a certain IS3 O^ THh UNIVERSITY OF THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS amount of growth is still possible. Now if this view meant that our axioms really have no more validity than our current opinions, it might be a ground for bewilderment or alarm. But on the contrary, pragmatism brings home to us most forcibly how deeply imbedded in experience these axioms are, and so gives us the best of reasons for using them as standards. A farmer does not cease to plant his crops, when the pre- cession of the equinoxes is explained to him, nor do men stop building for future generations on that account. So the doctrine that our axioms are part of a growing whole does not destroy their worth as standards, but rather enhances that worth, because it brings out their organic relation to the rest of experience. The second consideration is that whatever changes come about in our standards of truth and value result from the use of those very standards. Hence the changes should be re- garded, not as the destruction of the old stand- ards, but as an improved edition of them. There are certain literary persons who always are telling us that the English language is de- generating. They find that the standards of ONE INCREASING PURPOSE taste are becoming modified in the process of time, and that even the grammar of our tongue is undergoing some changes, and so they think that the language is breaking down. But as we look back over the history of our language we see that it is through the use of existing forms and standards that the changes have come about, and that the result in the long run has been to increase the vigor, richness, and flexibility of our speech. So we may well believe that, since our standards are themselves the product of experience, whatever changes in them are brought about through their further use in the interpretation of experience will only result in their perfecting. The third consideration has to do with the objection that, unless you demonstrate a priori what the goal of the universe is, it will remain quite possible that what you believe to be the goal is not really such, and that it may be not even in line with the actual goal. The reply to this objection is found in the fact that, wher- ever the new truths and values gained are also in the main inclusive of the old, we have proof not only of the fact of progress but also of 155 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS the direction of progress, and so are able to form a practical conception of the world's true goal. To bring out the meaning of this point let us take a particular instance from the sphere of social values. The social epoch preceding the present was marked by the development of individualism, and the great worth of that development is obvious to every student of history. Now centralization appears to be the tendency of governments, and collectivism is clearly in the ascendant in the field of industry. How in the midst of these changes can we tell whether we are practically reverting to an older order of things, or going off on a tangent, or really making progress ? It seems clear that if the new social order can include and conserve the values of individualism at the same time that it brings us certain new values, we shall be really making progress. So it is throughout the entire realm of truths and values. It is pos- sible for us to progress and to know that we are progressing without the aid of the a priori demonstrations of an absolute philosophy, so long as the new values and truths that the future may have in store for us include and 156 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE take up into themselves at least the highest among those which we now possess. The considerations just presented are capable of much fuller development, but enough has been said to show that a pragmatic and evolu- tionary view of the world and of truth is con- sistent with the adoption of definite standards of truth and value, and hence that there is no intrinsic reason why such a view should not aid us in solving the problem of purpose in the world. It remains for us but to note the essential harmony between Christianity and the foregoing evolutionary conception of our intellectual and spiritual standards. That for which Christianity stands is pri- marily a type of life, a specific kind of relation between man and God and between man and man. In the preceding lecture the central characteristic of this type of life was brought out, and was seen to consist in the blending of the consciousness of God's immanence in the human soul with the life of service, the growth of character, the development of moral person- ality. In Christianity this type of life, in which the ethical and the religious are blended, ranks 157 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS above everything else. Neither institutions nor ceremonials nor doctrines can justly claim to be of the same importance. Hence the essential content of Christianity has always found its best expression in vital terms. Religion consists in that higher righteousness whose law is love, says Jesus in the synoptic gospels; it consists in possessing eternal life here and now, we find him saying in the fourth gospel; it means the inward presence of the Divine Spirit as a permanent power for life, says Paul. And in the same key are the messages of the prophets before the time of Christ, and the greatest interpretations of our faith since his time. Now it is the charac- teristic of these vital terms that they retain their significance and power through the ages, while more rigid conceptions become outgrown. They assimilate new associations, reveal with the lapse of time greater depths of meaning, and give evidence of a permanent capacity for inspiring men. This vital quality in the essential ideas of Christianity is one great evidence of its adapt- ability to an evolutionary view of the world. Again Christianity as an historical religion finds the supreme revelation of God in a 158 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE personality. Jesus Christ through his spirit and character is a more intensive revelation of God than the writings which record his life, or the church which has arisen from his work, or any code that may be derived from his teach- ings. What it means for our faith that it centres in a supreme personality no theology will ever be able fully to estimate, but one of the great meanings is surely to be found in the fact that it possesses an unexampled source of in- spiration for moral and spiritual progress. The call of Jesus Christ is to an ever more abundant life, and who will foretell the age that shall no longer need that call ? Once more, when we compare Christianity with other religions, one of the most momentous points of contrast is to be found in just this ca- pacity for progress which Christianity possesses and which the other great religions of the world have so largely lacked. Confucianism with its absolute reverence for a definite social order belonging to the remote past, Buddhism and. Hinduism with their negative and non-social morality, Judaism with its national limitations, Mohammedanism, so legalistic and unspiritual 159 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS all conspicuously lack that capacity for prog- ress which we have seen to be inherent in the Christian faith, and in this lack is their undoing. It is to its inexhaustible capacity for progress that we must look for the ultimate justification of our faith that Christianity is the absolute religion. 19 In these qualities of Christianity in its vital, personal, and progressive character we have evidence of its essential adaptability to an evolutionary view of the world. So far, then, from being forced to conclude that an evolu- tionary philosophy is fatal to all standards of truth and value, and destructive of the essential ideas of Christianity, we have reached a quite opposite conclusion. We have come to see that those standards framed in accordance with an evolutionary philosophy are of the greatest worth, because they are organically related to the realities which they are to test, and that such a philosophy can accept as the content of its highest standards the great ideas of the Chris- tian religion. In following the successive steps of the dis- cussion in which we have sought to deal with 1 60 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE the problem of the world's apparent aimless- ness, I trust that the general character of the solution proposed has not been lost sight of. We have found much help in the changed conception of natural law which is appearing in many quarters; we have seen the advantage of substituting the conception of the growing universe for the thought that it is static; we have seen the worth of the pragmatic and evolutionary conception of spiritual standards, and their compatibility with Christian ideas. But the solution of our problem in the last analysis belongs now as ever to religious faith. The object of our discussion has been to remove certain obstacles from the way of faith, to defend its rights, and to show that it is met more than half-way by our most satisfactory theories of the world. But the ultimate solution of our problem lies in the realm of religious experience. It consists in spiritually appropriat- ing the central truth of Christianity, the ethical monotheism of Jesus, in which the conscious- ness of the immanence of God and active self- dedication to the moral ideal are perfectly blended. Jesus has taught mankind how to 161 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS live the eternal life in the midst of time. As his spirit becomes more and more the motive power of our lives, we understand the meaning of that saying of the apostle, "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." It is when such an experience becomes a settled possession of our inner life that we are best able to understand the world about us as the manifestation of one increas- ing purpose. 'Then life is to wake not sleep, Rise and not rest, but press From earth's level where blindly creep Things perfected, more or less, To the heaven's height, far and steep, 'Where, amid what strifes and storms May wait the adventurous quest, Power is Love transports, transforms Who aspired from worst to best, Sought the soul's world, spurned the worms'. :< I have faith such end shall be: From the first Power was I knew. Life has made clear to me That, strive but for closer view, Love were as plain to see. 162 ONE INCREASING PURPOSE * When see ? When there dawns a day, If not on the homely earth, Then yonder, worlds away, Where the strange and new have birth, And Power comes full in play." 20 163 IV MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS discussion of the highways of thought resulted in the adoption of that one which leads us deepest into life, and finds the test of truth not only in the experiences of the senses and the categories of the intellect, but also in the sense of beauty, in the postulates of the moral nature, and in the victories and defeats of our practical life. Our study of certain typical ways in which men have sought the experience of the Eternal, while finding much of value in mysticism, ultimately took us out of doors into the daylight of human history and amidst the activities in which moral personality is developed. Again, our consideration of the problem of the world's apparent aimlessness has led us to see that the most adequate modern views of the cosmos corroborate strongly the faith that the whole is becoming the expression 164 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS of one increasing purpose. But all of these solutions, genuine as they surely are, never- theless confront us the more directly with another of humanity's problems, and the most urgent of them all. This is the problem of moral evil. In the pathway of upward development we have fellowship with God, but what befalls us when we go astray ? How, in this universe of God, can we go astray ? Does God cast off his people ? Do we stumble that we may fall ? In our fall is there any pain to him, and is there any hope of recovery for us ? Whether we do well or ill, is all to the glory of God ? If not, whose is the shame ? The thought of the ruin of any human interest brings an overshadowing gravity upon one's spirit. The sheep graze peacefully in the sunshine on the mounds of Mesopotamia, but shall we forget that one of those mounds is the ruin of Nineveh ? Sable Island might hold our attention only for its bleak picturesque- ness, did we not know that hundreds of ships had beaten themselves to pieces on its rocks. That desolated spot by the street might concern us no more than an abandoned brick-kiln, if it did 165 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS not contain the ashes of a home. Napoleon's dreams of empire cannot arouse the merely peaceful interest that we take in those of Sir Thomas More, when we remember what devas- tation the former brought to Europe. So we cannot take the universe in a merely light- hearted way, when once its moral catastrophes have come home to us. The history of the ruined and buried splendors of the moral world, the shipwrecked characters, the devas- tated loves, the wide havoc that one man's sin may work in society, are calculated to arouse our thinking out of the superficiality into which it is so apt to fall, with the stern demand that we face the facts of life, and that we make any conclusion which we venture to put forward bear most directly on those facts. It is in the possible issues of the moral life for good or ill that the deep tragedy of existence lies. Here is where the glory and the gloom of life enfold each other with a more than Rembrandtian mystery. This is indeed the place for faith to do its boldest work. But must faith work in an altogether blind way ? Or are there great convictions founded in experience to sustain it ? And in j 66 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS particular, can the monotheism of Jesus Christ be adopted as a belief that is loyal at once to the facts and the ideals involved, and so as a true basis for the endeavors of faith ? The problem of moral evil is then our present theme, and the discussion of it can best be brought into relation to the preceding lectures by taking up, first, the treatment of this problem given by absolute idealism, and secondly, the solution to which our interpretation of Christian theology leads. The treatment of the problem of moral evil by absolute idealism, especially as it is found in Professor Royce's writings, is governed by certain motives which give it great strength. One of these motives appears in the determina- tion to give full recognition to the reality of moral evil, and not to let the vision of the painful contrasts which actually exist in the moral world be blurred by the doctrine of the oneness of all reality. A second motive is the desire to show that God is most intimately related to the moral struggles of our lives, that he triumphs 167 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS in our successes and suffers in our defeats. A third motive is manifested in the effort to prove that the resources of God are adequate for overcoming all moral evil, and that his triumph is sure. These are all motives which inevitably arise in the morally earnest soul, and a doctrine that really does justice to each deserves a hearty welcome. We therefore shall do well to estimate the teachings of absolute idealism in regard to our theme by considering how far they give to these motives satisfactory expression. Beginning with the motive first mentioned, we are led to ask how far absolute idealism succeeds in giving full recognition to the reality of moral evil. A theory which is to explain a set of facts must not end by explaining them away. Particularly is this true in the ethical realm, for the facts nevertheless remain, and, like reefs in a fog-bank, are all the more a source of danger because of the theory that obscures them. Now Professor Royce emphasizes the reality of evil by distinguishing his conception of it sharply from that of mysticism. To the philosophical mystic evil in all its forms is ultimately unreal. This is because unreality 1 68 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS pertains to everything finite. God alone has true being, and our individuality is only an illusory separation from him. Hence our pur- suit of what is selfish or of anything evil is like- wise an illusion, a mere chasing of phantoms, as we shall discover when we have "awakened from the dream of life." Over against such a conception Professor Royce declares, 'For us, evil is certainly not an unreality. It is a temporal reality, and as such is included within, and present to, the eternal insight. What we have asserted throughout is that no evil is a whole or complete instance of being. In other words, evil, for us, is something explicitly finite; and the Absolute as such, in the individuality of its life, is not evil, while its life is unquestion- ably inclusive of evil, which it experiences, overcomes, and transcends." 1 Now how is this emphasis on the reality of evil, moral as well as physical, related to the accompanying doctrine that the Absolute is in- clusive of all which is and all which happens, and at the same time is perfectly good ? The reasoning is in general somewhat as follows. Finite beings and the Absolute are logically nec- 169 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS essary to each other. Without finite beings as the objects of his consciousness, the Absolute would be unconscious, in short would be noth- ing, just as without the Absolute we, who are nothing but the objects of his experience, should not exist. But now, in order that the objects of the Absolute's experience may be definite and individual, the finite beings must be endowed with some element of will, for all products of mere intellect are abstract; it is impulse and will that give concreteness to a being. What we are to understand by an act of will is there- fore something unique, something not reducible to general formulas. Hence it never can be com- pletely determined by causes, but is in a meas- ure essentially free. But with freedom goes the possibility of moral evil. When a purpose forms itself within us, we may conform it to our sense of moral obligation, or we may carry it out by suppressing that sense. When we do the latter, we sin. Thus, according to Royce's admirable definition, f To sin is consciously to choose to forget, through a narrowing of the field of attention, an Ought that one already recog- nizes." 2 170 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS But our wills must be parts of the Absolute, as everything else is. Just as our consciousness is an integral part of his consciousness, so are our wills integral parts of his will. Says Professor Royce, 'You can indeed assert: I alone, amongst all the different beings of the universe, will this act. That it is true that God here also wills in me, is indeed the unquestion- able result of the unity of the divine conscious- ness. But it is equally true that this divine unity is here and now realized by me, and by me only, through my unique act. My act, too, is a part of the divine life that, however frag- mentary, is not elsewhere repeated in the divine consciousness. When I thus consciously and uniquely will, it is I then who just here am God's will, or who just here consciously act for the whole." 3 Now all this must be as ap- plicable to our bad acts as to our good acts. Our bad acts may be counterbalanced, or ''overcome," as Royce always hastens to add, by other good acts, but nevertheless they re- main as constituents of the life of the Absolute. But we must pause to ask whether this at- tempt to affirm at one and the same time that 171 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS moral evil is real, and that it is as genuinely a constituent of the Absolute as anything else, has succeeded. Can all our acts be identical parts of the Absolute's will and at the same time free and so moral or immoral ? It would seem not. Our actions must have a measure of freedom with respect to God as well as with respect to other things, if they are really to be reckoned in the moral realm. But in absolute idealism this is not the case, for the Absolute's experience is eternally complete. Past, present, and future are alike immediately before him. But our actions are a part of the Absolute's experience, and for this very reason our lives are complete from the eternal point of view. 4 Now this gives us a genuinely deterministic view of our lives. It matters little to show that our actions are not the necessary result of natural causes, if from the ultimate point of view they stand completely determined. The discharge from a shot-gun is to all intents and purposes as much a unit as the discharge from a rifle, and is as much de- termined by the fire-arm. It signifies nothing that each several shot has a path of its own, and that it is only partially interfered with by the 172 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS other shot, because after all its course is primarily shaped by the discharging weapon. But when you add to this the supposition that the charges are eternally fired off, that the shot are reposing in the target as well as being in the cartridge and on the way, that what they shall hit is eternally settled, then it hardly seems possible to argue that each several shot had an aim of its own. So if all our deeds are by their very nature identical parts of the Absolute's ex- perience, and if that experience is necessarily complete, then from the highest point of view our lives stand finished with our future deeds, whether predominantly righteous or wicked, arranged in order. The whole doctrine comes to this, that whatever we shall do we must do, in order that the Absolute may be what he eternally is. Thus the doctrine fails to be faith- ful to one of its main motives, the desire not to blur the reality of moral evil. For while our finite lives are not reduced to illusions, as by the mystics, yet the moral nature of our actions is obscured, because from the ultimate point of view they possess no freedom. But while the reality of moral evil is slighted 173 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS so far as freedom enters into it, from another point of view it is given too much reality. That is to say, it is given a permanence in reality that is a source of dismay to moral effort. For the evil deed is as much a constituent of the Ab- solute's life as anything else. Just as the family pictures in a baronial castle include portraits of the youthful and the aged, the dissipated and the virtuous, all on the same wall, so in the life of the Absolute the bad of our finite lives is just as actually an element as the good. The evil is there to stay. So Professor Royce writes: 'What you mean when you say that evil in this temporal world ought not to exist, and ought to be suppressed, is simply what God means by seeing that evil ought to be and is endlessly thwarted, endured, but subordinated. You can never clean the world of evil; but you can subordinate evil." 5 Now the idea of a world clean of evil may be too much for our faith, but that there is a process of cleansing going on, which is able more and more to reduce the scope of evil, we must believe, and we must have faith that this is true from the most metaphysical point of view that we can conceive. 174 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS But we must turn to the second motive which enters into the theory of moral evil put forward by absolute idealism, especially that of the Roycean type. We described it as the desire to show that God is most intimately related to the moral struggles of our lives, that he triumphs in our successes and suffers in our defeats. Whatever we may think of the doc- trine that the moral evil of men is an integral part of God's life, we surely do long to recognize that the struggle with evil is one in which he really shares. This is the deepest motive in the current liberal theology of our land, and by all means it should be given full development. The vigor with which this note is sounded by Professor Royce has much to do with the hold his writings have on that portion of our ministry which is alive to theological questions. Professor Royce sets in relief his view of God's relation to the struggle with moral evil by con- trasting it with the view that men are essentially independent of God in their existence, and for that reason are free moral agents. 6 According to such a view God creates men out of hand, endows them with faculties, and then holds 175 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS them accountable for their deeds. His relation to the moral life of man is that of administering the rewards and punishments that human actions deserve. It is thus external in its character, rather than intense and vital. Such a view has been already weighed in the balances by theology and found wanting. It makes impossible an appreciation of the depth of the Christian gospel. It makes atonement a stum- bling-block and foolishness instead of the wis- dom and the power of God. Moreover it over- looks, as Professor Royce shows, one of the world-old facts of human experience, which is felt with new keenness by this generation, the solidarity of men's moral life. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children from generation to generation. The wanton deeds of one man cause thousands to stumble. The selfishness of the few compels the multitudes to drink from polluted rivers. The greed of landlords reduces the life of tenants to a slow suffocation. The striker in his passion for re- prisal dynamites our bridges. The uncleanness of the poor sows the seeds of disease in the pathway of all. A reckless speculator brings 176 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS to a standstill an entire industry. Goethe taints his wonderful genius with license, to the lasting harm of Germany. On the other hand our civilization gets its progressiveness and its resisting power from the tissues of interwoven moral lives so characteristic of our modern world. Great achievements are never the single- handed products of great men. To the genius of the great has to be added the faithfulness and integrity of multitudes of average men, in order that anything large and lasting may be accomplished. The toil, the patience, the suffering of countless men must enter into the warfare with evil and the production of good, if permanent achievements are to be made. But if the moral relations between man and man are thus intimate and organic, how pale and devoid of soul-stirring power is the concep- tion which represents God as a mere umpire, assigning to each man his deserts. A Deity that is only externally related to moral issues can have only a nominal supremacy in human lives. Such a Deity can at best be only the titular head of the universe, and will be speedily 177 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS superseded, so far as real authority is concerned, by men's highest moral ideals. These may be more abstract in their form, but they will prove more dynamic in practical effect, than the External Ruler, to whom conventional homage may still be paid. Hence Professor Royce renders a most valuable service to religion and theology, when he insists with reiterated em- phasis that God is a sharer in all our struggles with evil, and that we on our part by the very strain and passion of our moral endeavor, and by all the defeats and victories that we experience in sustaining the moral cause, are entering into the life of God. From such a view-point our moral struggles gain a significance which trans- forms them. They are seen to lead not to the depletion but to the fulfilment of life. They become transfigured, for we see them to be the means whereby we may hold converse with Moses and Elias, may hear the voice of the Father out of the overshadowing cloud, and thus may enter in some measure into the mysteries of the mind of Christ. But we already have found that the formal doctrines of absolute idealism sometimes work 178 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS to the obscuring of the very insights that they are designed to interpret. So it is here. As was brought out in the first lecture, absolute idealism, with all its emphasis on the immanence of God, has difficulty in representing him as really immanent in history. This is because time is the necessary form of history, and of all personal and moral life, so far as we can con- ceive them with any definiteness, while if God is the Absolute portrayed by the idealists, time is not fully real for him. The conse- quence of this is that all which is done in human history is the work of the different finite con- sciousnesses that enter into it. In fact all that happens in this world of ours is the work of man and nature, or rather the finite psychic powers which really constitute nature. God, as such, does not act in time. He is the in- cluder of all events but not an actor in the midst of events. And thus we see once more how sharp, from the stand-point of the practical interests of life, is the dualism that absolute idealism creates between the Temporal and the Eternal Order. We are told that Russia is governed by the bureaucracy rather than by the 179 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS czar. This situation may serve to illustrate our present difficulty. If all the concrete decisions and actions of the Russian government are the work of the system of bureaucrats, then the only function of the czar is to furnish a nebulous kind of authority for whatever happens. If he could be spirited away, everything would go on as before, so long as the people believed him to be there. So in this universe of ours, if God is to be thought of as active in events only as he is represented by some form of finite con- sciousness, he is sovereign more in name than in fact. He is as much the merely titular head of the universe, though he be called the Absolute, as was the External Ruler, whom both philosophy and liberal theology have rejected. He is after all not one who is striving, suffering, and triumphing with us in the great drama of the world's redemption. From the pragmatic point of view the latter thought is too precious to be enmeshed and rendered impotent by a priori deductions from the general concept of being. The third motive which we noted as influen- tial in the treatment of the problem of moral 1 80 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS evil by absolute idealism is the desire to attain to a certainty that the outcome of the moral struggle will be the triumph of the good. This is one of the most powerful motives that any philosophy can employ, and though some thinkers may feel compelled to ignore it, none should deliberately put a slight upon it. It ill becomes the sheltered philosopher or the man of culture, who is the heir of all the ages, to assume that his fellows, standing in the thick of society's moral conflicts, do not need the assurance that the cause of the good will tri- umph. There is in such an attitude something of that arrogance which the robustly healthy sometimes display, but which the true physician never permits in himself. Even the most valiant spirit will sometimes come out of the conflict hardly bestead and faint, and in need of all the reassurance that religion and philoso- phy can give him, and surely the great mass of toiling and suffering souls do not err when they seek for an assured faith in an ultimate victory of the good. Now Professor Royce gives frequent and noble expression to the very assurance that 181 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS the moral struggler needs; the triumph of the good is most certain; it is grounded in the nat- ure of God; we who are faithful to our moral tasks share in the triumph. It is in and through our endeavors, our persistence, our bearing of life's strain, and our vigilance in discovering and grappling with its opportunities, that God comes to the victory which is his. But just as so many of the measures passed by our legis- lative bodies contain at some vital point a provision which nullifies their really salutary features, so it is with the doctrine by which Professor Royce would convince us that the moral cause will be victorious. And unfortu- nately the nullifying portion consists of the very argument by which the needed conviction should be supported. We are told that the triumph is sure because it exists in the eternal world as a reality present to God. This is a mat- ter of a priori demonstration. But the eternal world is just the whole temporal order, present, past, and future, spread out in completeness and seen in its unity. Thus moral victory is certain in the universe because that which from our stand-point is future and undetermined 182 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS is from the ultimate point of view an accom- plished fact. Now such an argument tends to rob the certainty that it is designed to produce of its moral worth, and this for two reasons. In the first place, the assurance to be desired is one that not only will bring tranquillity to the mind, but also will lift the moral energies to their highest and steadiest efficiency. But the doc- trine offered us can at best yield only the former benefit, and fails to secure the latter. 7 It cannot properly be said, as it sometimes has been, that the doctrine of the complete determinateness of the world from the ultimate point of view is calculated to lead men to sin, but what it does do is to leave men where they are, whatever the moral level may be at which they find them- selves. At the utmost it may aid men to undergo what must be undergone, but it does not con- tribute toward increasing the scope and in- tensity of the moral life. This cannot be done by the doctrine that from the most adequate point of view the universe is a finished scheme of facts. The kind of assurance that has real practical efficiency is not the product of a priori 183 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS reasoning at all. It has its roots rather in an inward religious experience of the reality and power of God in this our world of time; and the reasoning in which such an experience finds support is that which gathers additional evidence of God from as wide ranges of human expe- rience as possible. In the strength of such a personal and historical revelation of God one may face a future that is real, and by no means wholly determined even from the most meta- physical stand-point, with abundant cheer and overflowing spiritual energy. The second reason why the argument under consideration tends, in part at least, to defeat its own end is that this very certain triumph which it is supposed to prove is after all a hollow one. No evil is done away with accord- ing to this teaching. The theory explicitly forbids us to think that evil can be rooted up and stamped out. All that it admits of is that evil should be counterbalanced or overbalanced by some good. The most desperate wrongs, which have wrought wide and lasting havoc among men, remain in the consciousness of the Absolute, condemned, subordinated, 'over- 184 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS come," but as genuinely real as ever. It is as if one were to sculpture a smile on the faces in the Laocoon group and call the whole a portrayal of triumph, while the serpents forever coil around the struggling figures, whose hands in turn forever vainly clutch the serpents' throats. As one thinks this theory through, one can hardly avoid the feeling that the moral triumph in which one puts one's faith, even though less demonstrably certain than this, should be more genuine in its progress and more adequate in its consummation. Thus we see that the theories of absolute idealism are ill adapted to do justice to the great ethical and religious interests involved in the problem of moral evil. Our sense that the moral issues are real from the most metaphysical stand-point, our consciousness that we are sharers with God in struggle and victory, and our faith that the good w T ill triumph because we inwardly know and actively appropriate the power of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and in the universal moral workings of his Spirit all these great practical convictions not only fail of adequate interpretation but are in a THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS serious measure put to confusion, by the a priori deductions of absolute idealism. Consequently we are thrown back upon religious experience itself, and its inductive interpretation in the light of history and of experience in general, as the true means of dealing with this great problem of moral evil. II Proceeding then to the second part of our discussion, we ask what solution of our problem can Christian theology afford ? And first let us recall certain general results gained in the preceding lecture, for the sake of the light they may throw upon our investigation. In that lecture we undertook to seek for an adjustment between the ethical monotheism of Jesus and the most adequate modern views of the world, and in so doing we were led to distinguish ethical monotheism from rigid monism as well as from vague pluralism, and to maintain it as an independent metaphysical point of view. Our argument involved a series of conceptions which we need now briefly to summarize. We found the conception of God for which 1 86 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS ethical monotheism stands to be that of an es- sentially active being, who is constantly putting forth his power for the accomplishment of his eternal purposes. This is the prophets' con- ception of God, and is the one required by the New Testament thought of him as Spirit, as Love, as the Father who ever worketh for his children. It is the conception involved in any view of God that is predominantly ethical. With this conception fitted in, as we saw, the view that time is unqualifiedly real, and that the universe as a whole is growing in time, even when considered from the metaphysical stand- point. This means that though the universe be thought of as continuous throughout, yet new forms of life are constantly coming to pass, which when organized and brought into harmony with the rest, contribute to the enrichment of the life of the whole. But this process of develop- ment and organization is still going on, and cannot be supposed to be an actually accom- plished fact even to the view of God himself. Here already we can see one of the great advantages that ethical monotheism, when it employs the foregoing conceptions, gives us as 187 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS compared with the rigid monism of the absolute idealist. It enables us to regard moral evil as something to be eliminated from the universe, and actually to be put out of existence. We can believe that our struggle with moral evil is resulting in its progressive annihilation, and can look forward to the great consummation, for which God himself is striving, when moral evil shall be no more. This is a far more potent doctrine than that of the absolute idealist, because it makes the moral warfare real, and the victory hoped for real, and lays the strongest emphasis on the vigilance and energy of each moral spirit. Whereas to de- ' clare, as the absolute idealist does, that from the highest point of view the moral consum- mation really exists, and that moral evil, thus regarded, is eternally overcome, is like crushing the commerce of an enemy with a paper block- ade. The whole traffic of wrong goes on as before, and the supremacy of righteousness is made no whit more evident. But how, in a universe pervaded by the life of God, is moral evil at all possible ? A suffi- cient answer to this question of the ages will 1 88 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS not be expected here, and I make no attempt to offer such an answer. My only suggestion is that the conception of the growing universe places us at a point of vantage for considering such a question and throws a certain amount of light upon it. Let us see how this is. In the preceding lecture we described the growth of the universe as being conditioned in general on a twofold process the formation of centres of spontaneous activity, and the con- trolling of these centres in the service of the organic life of the whole. But in a world so constituted the possibility of moral evil would seem to be involved inevitably, as soon as the level of conscious thinking is reached. Here the spontaneity that we find lower down be- comes genuinely and consciously free. Courses of action are not only not completely determined, but the alternative possibilities are definitely presented to consciousness for choice. In this realm the higher unity comes about, so far as any individual is concerned, only by moral action, and the forces brought to bear upon any individual to enlist it in the service of the whole must be moral forces. This means that 189 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS it always is possible for the individual to set his own good over against that of others, and in the pursuit of his ends to work them injury; just as also it is always possible for him to make some fleeting personal good the object of his desire instead of controlling his conduct for the sake of wholeness of life. Fulness, richness, and complexity of life come to pass only through growth, and growth takes place by the organi- zation of centres of spontaneous activity into a higher unity; this involves the possibility that the spontaneous centres may so act as to waste instead of develop their energies, that they may fail to nourish each other, and that they even may introduce poison into each other's life. When such waste or perversion of power takes place in the realm of personality, moral evil arises. Continuity between the sinning personality and the lives of other men and of God does not cease to exist, but it becomes fraught with pain. The vital issue is raised as to whether it shall be through the redemption of the sinning personality or through its self- dissolution that the higher unity of the kingdom of God is attained. 190 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS It is here that the shadow of tragedy falls most darkly upon the world. Few are they for whom the upward pathway does not some- times lead, for however brief a moment, along the margin of the abyss. Still fewer are those whose memory can bring back no time when they have been a source of moral injury to other lives whether because of deeds done or moral support withheld. And there is absolutely no one who does not find his life most perplexingly bound up with social conditions and institu- tions that are working disaster to the lives of multitudes. It therefore is a strange and hollow sort of moral rectitude which leaves a man without a deep sense of kinship with his sinning brother, such as these lines of Lowell contain : '' Looking within myself, I note how thin A plank of station, chance or prosperous fate, Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin;- In my own heart I find the worst man's mate, And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate That opes to those abysses Where ye grope darkly, ye who never knew On your young hearts love's consecrating dew Or felt a mother's kisses, 191 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled; Ah, side by side with heart's-ease in this world The fatal night-shade grows and bitter rue!" And when we add to this the recognition that we are co-implicated in the sin of others, whether by specific deeds or because we inertly tolerate social wrong, we become aware that the stern- est and most haunting sorrow of human life is couching at our door. We see that this problem of moral evil is the deepest problem of existence, on the successful solution of which the worth of the universe turns. But now we should note that as we have passed from the view of moral evil presented by absolute idealism to the more realistic con- ception of it which is characteristic of ethical monotheism, a change of emphasis has taken place with regard to the central issue of the problem itself. With absolute idealism the prime question is, why is evil here ? how may it be interpreted, so that when seen in its full context it may be understood as a part of a perfect whole ? With ethical monotheism the question as to why evil is here drops into a sec- ondary place, and the prime question is, how 192 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS is evil to be overcome ? Ethical monotheism is concerned not so much with the '* interpre- tation " of evil as with its elimination. From this point of view the ultimate solution of the problem will be religious and practical rather than primarily intellectual. It will consist in the actual manifestation of a power adequate for the conquest of moral evil, and in the increas- ing dominance of that power in the inner life and the social relations of men. The problem as thus practically conceived finds its solution in the principle of atonement embodied in the Christian revelation. Let us at once define the sense in which the con- ception "atonement' 3 is used here. The term in order to be serviceable to us must be di- vested of the associations with which com- mercial and penal and governmental theories have surrounded it. It must be understood as belonging altogether to the moral realm. By atonement, then, we shall mean the process of recovering the sinful personality into a life with God, and of neutralizing the moral wrong done by man to man, through the power of self- sacrificing love. The word atonement is best THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS adapted to our purpose, in spite of the physical and legal meanings so long given to it and which have grown so hollow to modern thought, because it best suggests the injustice that all sin, whether inward or outward, involves toward other men, and the tremendous cost of the moral process by which sin is overcome. Now the revelation of the principle of atone- ment in Jesus Christ involves two supreme insights, through which our most adequate solution of the problem of moral evil comes. The first of these is that the" supreme power in the universe is an atoning God. The atone- ment that Christianity really teaches us to believe in, when seen in its full dimensions, consists of a principle eternally active in the nature of God. The conception of God which the New Testament presents is that of a God who always is striving for the moral recovery of his erring children. His tenderness and forbearance toward the sinful are visible in the sunshine and rain which he sends upon them as upon the good. His forgiving love is seen in the joy with which he welcomes back the wayward son who is no more worthy of the 194 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS name. He is the shepherd who seeks the lost sheep until he finds it. He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that those who believe might not perish. He was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself. No adequate appreciation of New Testament thought can fail to emphasize both that our sin is always a source of pain to God, and that his efforts to reclaim us from its power are un- ceasing. In just such a failure, however, is to be found one of the gravest mistakes of theology. The tendency of theology has been to recognize atonement not only supremely but exclusively in Christ's death on the cross. But to limit atonement to a single event in history, however full of tragic sublimity we may know that event to be, is to narrow its power and to rob the faith in God's Fatherhood of its deepest meaning. It makes the relation of God to man's need throughout the great reaches of history far too negative. It represents his forgiveness as a merely passive attitude, whereas it really is an active and seeking force. Just as Jesus was not content with declaring to 195 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS the man sick of palsy that his sins were forgiven, but went on to make the evidence of forgive- ness as full and effective as possible by healing him, so the Heavenly Father cannot be con- tent to wait for the return of his children to himself, but unremittingly surrounds them with the influence of his atoning love. Washing- ton's patriotism was not a matter of a single campaign, but was coextensive with his coun- try's need. It kept him at the head of the Continental army through all its sufferings and defeats and desperate victories, and brought him back after the war, from what might have been deemed a well-earned rest, to service in the presidency. Can atoning love be a less persistent and essentially active principle in the divine nature than was patriotism in Washing- ton, or than is the spirit of compassion in all the great servants of men ? We most exalt the meaning of the cross of Christ when we relate it most closely to the eternal activities of God. If we understand Christ's sacrifice of himself to be the supreme revelation of God's heart, which is eternally seeking to express itself to our understanding, 196 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS then indeed we can regard that sacrifice as an event of cosmic significance. The work of Christ is not merely a ( provision ' : for the salvation of men; it is rather the most pure and intense embodiment that we know or can imagine of the work that the Heavenly Father cannot cease to do so long as the moral need of men continues to move him with compas- sion. This thought of the essential saviourhood of God has been admirably set forth by Pro- fessor Stevens in his 'Christian Doctrine of Salvation 5; in an important chapter on 'The Eternal Atonement." 'To me," wrote Pro- fessor Stevens, "the words 'eternal atonement' denote the dateless passion of God on account of sin; they mean that God is, by his very nat- ure, a sin-bearer that sin grieves and wounds his heart, and that he sorrows and suffers in consequence of it. It results from the divine love alike from its holiness and from its sympathy that 'in all our afflictions he is afflicted/ Atonement on its 'Godward side' is a name for the grief and pain inflicted by sin upon the paternal heart of God. Of this 197 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS divine sorrow for sin the afflictions of Christ are a revelation. In the bitter grief and anguish which he experienced on account of sin, we see reflected the pain and sorrow which sin brings to the divine love. Thus Christ's work is grounded in an eternal fact the sin- bearing and suffering of God. In whatever sense Christ was the Representative of God so that in him men see the Father, in whatever degree he was the interpreter and example of the divine feeling toward sin, in that sense and degree his suffering with and for men in their sins has its ground in the vicarious suffering of the eternal Love/' 8 In this faith that atonement is an eternal principle in the nature of God we find the basis of Christianity's capacity to solve the problem of moral evil. If the supreme power in the universe is spending its energy ceaselessly to recover men from their sinfulness, then our human struggle with sin may be waged with the largest hope, and we may believe that the might of moral evil in the world is being pro- gressively overcome. But we now must turn our thought to the MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS other great insight embodied in Jesus' revela- tion of the principle of atonement. It is that the life of sonship toward God involves for us an active participation in his atoning work. The son must share the spirit of the Father. The filial life must be animated by the same great motives and dedicated to the same pro- found spiritual tasks as is the Father's life. Just as no one is fully a member of a home who does not actively share to the extent of his capacity in promoting the interests of the home, so no one is fully a member of the family of God who does not seek to live for the same great ends for which the Father lives. But no motive lies deeper in the heart of God than the atoning love by which he seeks to recover his erring children. Hence in this atoning love we too must actively share. It must fill our hearts with its glow and go forth from us as an effective influence for the healing and quickening of the lives of other men. Here again theology has failed for the most part in setting forth the full meaning of the Christian faith in atonement. And this failure has been due largely to the artificial separation 199 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS made between our sonship and the sonship of Christ. The motive for such a separation, to be sure, was most justifiable and important. It consisted in the desire to exalt the supremacy of Christ over human life. But the means em- ployed were such as to defeat the end aimed at. To seek to exalt Christ by making an artificial separation between his sonship and ours tends to diminish his practical power over our lives. 9 In other words his real suprem- acy is sacrificed to a nominal one. In the polit- ical sphere it used to be assumed that the man who was to rule over his fellowmen must be derived from a special strain of blood. Such men were thought to have a nobler kind of humanity in them and so to be fitted for sov- ereignty. Such ideas are now obsolete among us. The one who is deemed worthy of author- ity is the one who has shown the largest capacity for service. The man who by breadth of intellect, purity of character, and force of will has accomplished things far beyond the power of others, and who has been able to lead his fellowmen on to achievements such as by themselves they never could have attained- 200 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS this is the man whom we recognize as possessing the largest amount of humanity, and to whom we gladly accord political sovereignty. So it is in the spiritual realm. Divinity belongs to him who rendered to the world an unexampled divine service and whose power to engender in other men the godlike life knows no limit. In this way, and not by artificial barriers between us and Christ, we may approach to an under- standing of his sonship, which yet will disclose to us ever new vistas of meaning as our fellow- ship with him grows intimate. But the artificial separation between Christ's sonship and ours has led men to think of atone- ment as exclusively his work, and has obscured to their vision the idea of our participation in that work. It has made men forget that Christ accomplishes his atonement for each one of us only as he implants his spirit in us. The atoning work of Christ's life and death were indeed sufficient, in the sense that they re- vealed as nothing else could the depths of the divine love. But how fatal to translate this sufficiency into something that tends to hinder the full current of that love from flowing 201 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS through the broad channels of Christian dis- cipleship to a world in need! There is another artificial separation made by theology which has beclouded the insight we are seeking to set forth. It consists in the fact that Christ's sonship and his atoning work have been left unrelated to each other in his own life. His sonship has been regarded as official, and so has not been thought of as essentially connected with the work which he did for men. Here again theology has put asunder what God joined together. It has failed to see that for Jesus sonship meant his consciousness of union with God as it was realized in and through his service of his fellowmen and his sacrifice for them. His sonship was inseparable from his living incorporation into human deeds of those depths of atoning love which he knew filled the heart of God. His sense of unreserved dedication to the Father's work, his absolute concentration of spirit upon doing the Father's will, his living union with the Father these are our best means of interpreting his conscious- ness of being the well-beloved Son. This in- deed has been perceived and powerfully set 202 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS forth by the Ritschlians, who have insisted that Jesus* sonship should not be separated from his fidelity to the vocation given him by the Father. But for average theological thinking the separation still exists. And its effect has been to obscure the full practical meaning of the principle of atonement as it was embodied in the life and sacrifice of Christ. We have failed to see that Christ's atoning work has in- terpreted the filial life for us all. We enter into fulness of sonship toward God in proportion as we actively express, according to the range of our influence, his spirit of healing and redeem- ing love. Many and many a disciple of our Lord indeed has risen to these higher levels of the filial life, but the full meaning and worth of what they experienced and accomplished has been hidden from the rank and file of Chris- tians by the limitations in current theology which we have just noted. The early church possessed this practical meaning of the atoning principle to a greater degree than have later times. The apostles were not only witnesses and ambassadors, but men conscious of being filled with the very 203 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS Spirit of God that was in Christ. They came at last to the point, even as Jesus foretold, where they were able to drink the cup that he drank and to be baptized with the baptism that he was baptized with. Paul bore about in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus, and strove to know the fellowship of his sufferings, and to fill up that which was behind of the afflictions of Christ. The apostolic consciousness of be- ing children of God did not mean exemption from the more tragic side of Christ's experience and service. On the contrary it affirmed that we are joint-heirs with Christ, "if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him/ 5 But the full significance of faith in the atoning God and in the capacity of the filial life for shar- ing in the work of atonement becomes evident only when we bear in mind the twofold char- acter of moral evil, and definitely apply our faith to both aspects. Moral evil always taints the life of the doer, and also wrongs the lives of others. A conception of atonement that bears on only one of these aspects is incomplete. Perhaps our modern ethical theories, viewed 204 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS from this stand-point, have not escaped a certain one-sidedness. Let us endeavor to relate our thought to both of these aspects of moral evil. And, first, the taint that is left in the doer of evil. It manifests itself at times even in the most well-ordered life. A feverishness in the blood, an arrogance and brittleness of temper, a narrowed and clouded vision, a dull and heavy egoism settling down upon the soul, a will strong only in impatience, and fretful and futile in its moral endeavor such are some of the symptoms which show that the debilitating effects of sin are at work in a life that for the most part is exemplary in its conduct. Again we find moral evil producing a thorough cor- ruption of the entire personality perverting its instincts, exhausting its powers, debasing all natural possibilities of good. The first signs of this moral taint may be merely a frivolous use of personal capacities, or they may consist in a cold self-regard, or a sinister blending of passion with the spirit of calculation. The results of its working may be subtle and obscure, or shockingly swift and violent. But however varied the symptoms of the immoral in men's 205 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS characters, they all betoken that some baleful influence has invaded the organic life of the personality, so that none of its activities has its normal value and power. To human lives thus tainted or corrupted Christianity comes with its principle of atone- ment. The secret of this principle lies in the health-giving power of the spiritual personality. When the springs of our life have become contaminated, our true resource is to flood them from the purer springs above us. When our spiritual organism has become infected with some form of sinfulness, we need to be removed to an atmosphere in which the seeds of the disease cannot live. But such curative and revivifying influences in the moral realm are the property of the spiritual personality. It is through the healing of a holy companion- ship that the will is made sound, the heart purified and deepened, and the moral vision re- stored to clearness. Moral strength is born of moral fellowship. The power that, after sin has done its debilitating work, can set the currents of spiritual life flowing strongly in us once more is the influence of another personality in which 206 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS strength and tenderness, pure spiritual vision and knowledge of human weakness, unfailing energy in moral endeavor and profound patience, are intimately blended. Both of the insights which enter into the Christian principle of atonement are indis- pensable here. The full and adequate means of moral renewal is the faith in the reality and forgiving love of the Heavenly Father. The symphony of man's spiritual redemption is our Lord's parable of the father's unquench- able yearning for his grievously sinful son in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. This parable preserves to us Jesus' deepest interpretation of human experience. Through all the outward aspect of the world and of life in sunshine and rain, in the clothing of flowers and the feeding of birds, in the tranquil starlit night and the violent tempest, in the toil of men and the un- conscious grace of children in every phase of human experience Jesus perceived the revealing of the Father's infinite compassion. To bring men to a living perception of this momentous truth was the underlying motive of his ministry. That God's atoning love is 207 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS constantly going forth for man's recovery, with striving and suffering and exhaustless patience, never forsaking us in all our waywardness and sin, and that God's companionship is always open to those who will turn to him in faith that is the fundamental message of Christ's gospel to the world in its moral need. But in the atoning work by which we are brought back from sinfulness to moral health the children of God also bear a part. They supply something of that spiritual fellowship through which the sick soul is to be restored to vigor again. Who of us is there who has not received from some high-minded and strong- hearted friend that ministry of moral healing which is of the very essence of atonement? Can we not perceive in the fidelity of such a friend a manifestation of the grace of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ? Must we not recognize that the spirit of sonship in a man endows him with the privilege and power of sharing in the redemptive labors of God ? So indeed does the leaven of the divine Spirit work; the sodden and sinful life becomes per- meated with vital power again, because men 208 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS in whom the atoning grace of God dwells trans- mit to it what they in turn have received. The experience of the Christian consciousness is that the power to remove the taint of sin flows supremely from Christ. But this by no means conflicts with the two great insights which have been set forth as the essence of the principle of atonement. On the contrary the supremacy of Christ's redemptive power is based on the fact that the principle of atonement has this twofold character. Christ's life of sacrifice has its meaning for us as the clear and pro- found expression of what is eternally in the heart of God. His life and death inevitably lose in vital power with us, if we recognize no eternal atonement. And on the other hand the climax of his redemptive mission in each of us is reached only as we in turn participate to the full extent of our capacity in a like work for others. Thus the adequacy of Christ's princi- ple of atonement appears in the very fact that it brings to bear all the spiritual forces of the universe upon the problem of moral evil. But the principle of atonement, if it is to meet the deepest needs of our age, must have 209 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS its bearing not only on the taint that pervades the life of the one who does wrong but also upon the moral injuries caused to those who are wronged. It is a weakly sentimental and mor- bid kind of religion that calls upon a man to mourn over the guilt which his sin brings upon himself but at the same time allows him to forget the moral injury that it causes others. Our modern ethical sense revolts at such ignoble futility. A religion which merely con- soles us for the wrongs we have done is a menace to moral progress. It is dangerous simply to deodorize what requires to be disin- fected. Have we injured the soul of another ? Have we been coolly indifferent to the moral emergency of our neighbor, or failed to stand by a friend in the hour of his direst need ? Then our first thought should be, not how we may get relief from the memory that afterwards haunts us, but how those wounds of our in- flicting are to be healed, and how the spiritual pain that we justly suffer is to be turned to account as a moral force. Nor is the sphere of specific personal re- sponsibility the only one where the modern 210 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS conscience feels that moral injuries call for atonement. Our political, industrial, and so- cial institutions, beneficent though they may be shown to be in a large measure, neverthe- less have ghastly by-products of moral injury which sometimes assume enormous proportions. Children stunted by premature toil, women debilitated by cruel conditions of work, laboring men embittered by the ruthless exploitation of their labor, business men who are forced to choose between cheapening their honor and ruining their fortunes, young men and women with absolutely no chance to know what man- hood and womanhood mean has the Christian principle of atonement no bearing upon such moral sufferers as these ? And if it has none, can we possibly sustain the claim that the prob- lem of moral evil is to find its solution through the Christian religion ? If it is true that the church has had no clear, definite response to make to the appeal of the morally wronged, the fault lies with our theology, or with the practice of our faith, and not with the original significance of the Christian gospel. Nothing more deeply stirred the heart of Jesus, 211 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS or more quickly set in motion the mighty moral forces of his nature, than the needs of those who were the victims of other men's sinf Iness. At the beginning of his ministry in Nazareth he characterizes his mission in those words quoted from ancient prophecy: 'He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, . . . to set at liberty them that are bruised/ 3 The multitudes of his people moved him to com- passion, because they were 'as sheep having no shepherd/ 3 His sternest condemnation was pronounced upon those who caused their weaker fellowmen to stumble, and who bound burdens upon them too grievous to be borne. Surely Jesus' gospel was shaped originally to meet the needs of those who are morally maimed by the indifference, frivolity, recklessness, and cruelty of other men. And when we conceive the principle of atone- ment in its full compass, as we already have endeavored to do, then we are in a position to see how directly the Christian gospel applies to just this aspect of the moral problem. The hope that the effects of the moral injury wrought among men will be overcome rests upon the 212 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS twofold character of the Christian principle of atonement. The law that sonship toward Goc 1 includes man's participation in the work of atonement is of the utmost moment here. Just as American slavery required the sacrifices of the Civil War, just as the Opium War has added urgency to the missionary's call to China, just as Spain's misrule made morally necessary Colonel Waring's work in cleansing Havana of the yellow fever at the cost of his life, so wherever greed, oppression, neglect of duty, or the wanton pursuit of pleasure and power are making the conditions of life cruel and moral development impossible, there is need of atoning work by the followers of Christ. He who claims God as his Father and Jesus as his Saviour is thereby enlisted in the cause of redressing the spiritual injuries of mankind. The Christian is under bonds to grapple with the m@ral evil in the world, not only in. its individual forms, but as it is intrenched in our social institutions, and to do his uttermost toward driving it from the field. He is bound to take up the cause of the wronged all over this world, and to endeavor in the strength of Christ's spirit to do something 213 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS toward atoning to these moral sufferers for the injuries inflicted upon them by their fellow- men. But this work of atoning for the moral wrong that men have suffered is far from a merely human work. Our Heavenly Father effects the same end by methods vaster and subtler than we are able to command or even to com- prehend. The mighty processes of nature are gently remedial in their influence upon man's life, and infinitely more faithful than are any human ministrations. The recuperative powers within the soul itself are constantly replenished from the life of God. And where human wills become effective as a means of atonement, it is because they have been brought into accord with the divine purpose, and have been taken up into the highest activities of God's life. Our entire human striving for the conquest of the effects of moral evil ultimately derives its efficiency from the reality and power of the atoning God. It should not be supposed that the two as- pects of the problem of moral evil which we have been considering are found entirely sep- 214 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS arate from each other among men. On the contrary it is doubtless true that the maimed life is to some extent morally tainted, and that the most morally corrupt life is such in part by reason of injuries wrought by other men. Yet it remains a fact that the outstanding features of any moral problem are now mainly of the one sort and again mainly of the other, and that the Christian principle of atonement can be applied in its full range and power only as the essential distinction between the two chief aspects of moral evil is preserved. When the problem itself is fully grasped, and when atone- ment is more widely perceived to be both an eternal principle in the nature of God and a principle of life that should be manifest in every child of God, then the conquest of moral evil will go forward with new vigor and effectiveness. Let me urge upon the students of this school of theology the task of clarifying, broadening, and deepening the conception of atonement in the church to-day, so that this great doctrine of our faith shall not become like a tattered battle-flag in a hall of honor something under which men once sacrificed their lives, but to which now they 215 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS simply lift their hats but shall be still the actual rallying-point for our spiritual forces, the inspiring emblem that leads men on toward the subdual of moral evil and the consequent triumph of the kingdom of God. The principal features of the Christian solution of the problem of moral evil are now before us. Let us recall in a summary way what they are. In the first place Christian thought presupposes that moral evil is to be progres- sively eliminated from the universe. This thought, though impossible on the basis of the rigid monism of the absolute idealist, we found to be in accord with the principles of ethical monotheism as previously developed. With regard to the origin of moral evil no complete explanation has been offered, since a complete explanation of that which is essentially irra- tional is not to be hoped for. But it was shown that the possibility of moral evil seems to be inseparable from those processes of growth by which the kingdom of God is coming to pass. But with Christianity the prime question is not how evil originated, nor how it may be "inter- preted," but how it can be overcome and anni- 216 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS hilated. This question finds its answer in the principle of atonement embodied in the life and death of Jesus Christ. Two great insights are involved in this principle: first, that atone- ment is inherent and eternally active in the nature of God, and second, that man's filial life with God involves his active sharing in God's atoning work. As for Christ's relation to the principle of atonement, it can be only magnified by giving that principle the widest possible range. Finally the significance of atone- ment appears most fully when it is applied to both of the two great aspects of moral evil. Applied to the taint or corruption in the doer of moral evil, atonement works through the health-giving power of spiritual companion- ship, divine and human. Applied to the moral injuries inflicted on other men, atonement means the bringing to bear of the spiritual forces of the universe on the task of neutralizing the effects of such injuries and of subduing the agencies that caused them. As we bring our study to a close we should not lose sight of the fact that the solution of the problem of moral evil to which we have been 217 THEOLOGY AND HUMAN PROBLEMS led is essentially practical in its nature. This means not only that the solution in the end has to be put into practice, but also that the final evidence of its adequacy comes only as we adopt it in faith and actually experience its power in our inner life and our social service. When this is done we become aware that the deepest ex- perience of the Eternal comes to pass through the workings of atonement in and through our lives. To this truth the greatest prophets of our faith bear witness from Hosea to the present time. To some minds the temptation to con- vert this practical solution into a complete theoretical solution always will be alluring. A scheme of things in which every single fact of experience is represented as a matter of rational necessity certainly has its attractions. But we have had ample evidence that efforts in this direction are fraught with danger and are futile in the end. It really should commend the conclusions to which we have been led that they do not attempt, in advance of the actual experi- ments of life, to clear up every mystery con- nected with the problems with which they deal. Above all with regard to moral evil it 218 MORAL DEPTHS AND HEIGHTS is enough for us to know by inward experience that, however it comes into the world, it will not ultimately defeat the purpose of God. In spite of it, and by the very conquest of it, that new and higher unity of spiritual life which consti- tutes God's kingdom is in process of realization. For we are persuaded "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 219 NOTES Note i, page 13. Conception of God, p. 353; also 315 ft. and 347, 348. The World and the Individual, vol. I, 420 ft., vol. II, pp. 122 ff.; 142; 227, 228; 231-233. Note 2, page 15. Professor Royce in his Conception of God gives a marvellously concise statement of the argument for absolute idealism, which he has fully elaborated in his great work, The World and the Individual. For a good sketch of the same process of reasoning see Blewett's The Study of Nature and the Vision of God, pp. 64-79 (Toronto, Briggs, 1907). Note 3, page 20. The World and the Individual, vol. I, pp. 440-441. While in this passage Professor Royce main- tains that both God's will and our finite wills get "expressed" in the world, he limits the idea of efficiency to finite beings. Note 4, page 20. To this point it might be objected that if we think of God as an actor in history whose deeds count in addition to our deeds, we are implicitly employing the idea of miraculous intervention. But this is not necessarily the case, except in the most attenuated sense of the term miraculous. God may work through finite consciousnesses, which he inspires. (Compare on this point James's Will to Believe, page 184 and foot-note.) But as Royce rightly teaches, if God be not a reality in time, the idea of efficiency does not apply to him. Note 5, page 20. A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 40, 114 et passim. Note 6, page 20. See especially the chapter entitled "The Temporal and the Eternal." 221 NOTES Note 7, page 22. The World and the Individual, vol. I, PP- 348-349. Note 8, page 26. For students who read only English, Kant's three Critiques and his Prolegomena are available in translation: The Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Max Miiller; The Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Abbott (Longmans); The Kritik of Judgment, translated by Bernard; Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic, translated by Mahaffy and Bernard. Selections from Kant, by John Watson, forms the best introduction to the study of Kant for the English student. For an excellent brief in- terpretation of Kant's philosophy see Hoffding's History of Modern Philosophy, vol. II. All of the foregoing works except the Critique of Practical Reason are published by Macmillan. Note 9, page 29. Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe, p. xxx. See Watson's Selections, p. 6. Note 10, page 29. See The Critique of Practical Reason (cited under note 8) and Watson's Selections, beginning p. 261. Note u, page 30. For passages in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft in which Kant takes this position see the second German edition, pp. 772, 773; 832, 833; 838, 839; and the section " Vom Meinen, Wissen und Glauben," pp. 848 ft. Note 12, page 30. Prolegomena (English translation, referred to under note 8), pp. 125, 128; compare the closing sections of the Critique of the Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgment. Note 13, page 33. Some of the principal works in the field of systematic theology by members of the Ritschlian school, which may be read in translation, are: the third volume of Ritschl's great work on Justification and Recon- ciliation, and Kaftan's The Truth of the Christian Religion, both published by T. & T. Clark; Herrmann's Communion with God (Putnam). A translation of Ritschl's Unterricht in der christlichen Religion may be found in Swing's Theology of Albrecht Ritschl. Lobstein's An Introduction to Protestant 222 NOTES Dogmatics (University of Chicago Press) forms a good intro- duction to Ritschlian thought. The best treatise in English on the work of this school is Garvie's The Ritschlian Theology (T. & T. Clark). A good sketch and estimate of Ritschlian- ism may be found in W. A. Brown's The Essence of Christian- ity (Scribner). Note 14, page 34. The best treatment of the Ritschlian conception of "value-judgments" is Reischle's Werturteile und Glaubensurteile, Halle, 1900. See also W. A. Brown, Es- sence of Christianity, pp. 254 ft. Note 15, page 41. Some of the works by the recognized leaders of the pragmatic school of thought, which either expound the doctrine itself or embody its principles, may be mentioned here: by William James, The Will to Be- lieve, Pragmatism, A Pluralistic Universe, The Meaning of Truth (all published by Longmans); by Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory (University of Chicago Press); by Schiller, Humanism, and Studies in Humanism (Macmillan). Hoff- ding's The Problems of Philosophy, and The Philosophy of Religion (both published in their English translation by Macmillan), deserve to be studied equally with the foregoing works. The writer is in full accord with the pragmatists, although his doctrines apparently were worked out apart from the direct influence of the pragmatic school. A valua- ble article by McGiffert on "The Pragmatism of Kant" in the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods serves to emphasize the naturalness of the transition from the highway of the critical philosophy to the highway of pragmatism. Note 16, page 43. W. James, Psychology, vol. II, chap. 22. Note 17, page 45. W. James, Pragmatism, lectures II and VI; Dewey, "The Control of Ideas by Facts," The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, vol. IV, pp. 197 ff., 253 ft., 309 ft. Note 18, page 47. Schiller, "Axioms as Postulates." in Personal Idealism, edited by Sturt (Macmillan). 223 NOTES Note 19, page 49. For a defence of empirical metaphysics from the stand-point of the theologian see Theologie und Meta- physik, by Wobbermin, whose general affiliations are with the Ritschlian school; his later book, Der christliche Gottesglaube in seinem Verh'dltnis zur heutigen Philosophic und Natur- wissenschajt, exemplifies the method of empirical metaphysics applied to questions in the philosophy of religion. Compare Knox's Taylor lectures for 1903, The Direct and Funda- mental Proofs oj the Christian Religion (Scribner), p. 40. For the value of practical attitudes in the discovery of truth see James's Will to Believe, especially the first three essays. Note 20, page 51. A position similar to that of the prag- matists on this point is that of Sigwart; see his Logik, vol. II, pp. 19-23. Compare Aikins, The Principles oj Logic, pp. 423-425- Note 21, page 54. Professor James has done much toward showing how from the pragmatic point of view we may think of God as being immanent in history by his chapter on "The Compounding of Consciousness" in his Pluralistic Universe. Note 22, page 54. Dewey, "The Evolutionary Method as Applied to Morality," Philosophical Review, vol. XI, pp. 107 ff. and 353 ft. See also my article on "The Influence of Pragmatism Upon the Status of Theology" in the Garman commemorative volume, entitled Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (Houghton, Mifflin, 1906). Note 23, page 55. Troeltsch, Die Absolutheit des Christen- tums und die Religions geschichte. II Note i, page 67. Imitation of Christ, book III, chap. 24. Note 2, page 68. Theologia Germanica, chap. 15, cj. chap. 22. Note 3, page 70. The eminent Old Testament critic Duhm is a conspicuous example of those who believe that 224 NOTES the ultimate basis of religion is the mystical consciousness, though how far his conviction rests upon personal mystical experience his fine reserve does not permit us to know. See his pamphlet, Das Geheimnis in der Religion (Mohr, Leip- sic, 1896). Note 4, page 76. The vigorous criticism of mysticism by the theologians of the Ritschlian school has exerted a most important influence over modern thought upon the subject. The English reader can learn the prevailing Ritschlian atti- tude best from Herrmann's Communion with God (Putnam). Harnack frequently treats of mysticism in his History of Dogma, see especially vol. Ill, pp. 97-108. An excellent brochure on mysticism from the Ritschlian stand-point is Reischle's Ein Wort zur Controverse uber die Mystik in der Theologie (not translated). Professor James has stimulated greatly the interest of religious thinkers in mysticism by his treatment of the subject in his Varieties of Religious Ex- perience, lectures XVI and XVII. Compare my discussion of Herrmann and James in an article entitled "Faith and Mysticism" in The American Journal of Theology, vol. VIII, pp. 502 ft. For historical treatments of the subject the read- er may consult Inge's Christian Mysticism (Scribner) and Jones's Studies in Mystical Religion (Macmillan). Note 5, page 78. Theologia Germanica, chap. n. Note 6, page 82. See Garvie, The Ritschlian Theology, chap. 7; and compare Harnack, Christianity and History, translated by Saunders (London, 1896). Note 7, page 84. See especially Herrmann's Faith and Morals, and his Communion with God, chap. 3, et passim (both published by Putnam). Note 8, page 86. Herrmann, Communion with God, chap. 2. Note 9, page 87. Ritschl, Justification and Reconciliation, pp. 442 ff. Note 10, page 91. See Troeltsch on "Wesen der Religion und der Religionswissenschaft," in Die Kultur der Gegenwart: die christliche Religion, II, p. 487. 225 NOTES Note n, page 92. See Die vergleichende Religions- forschung und der religiose Glaube, by Chantepie de la Saus- saye; compare also Troeltsch, "Die Selbstandigkeit der Religion," in the Zeitschrijt fur Theologie und Kirche, vols. V and VI, and Kaftan's rejoinder, "Die Selbstandigkeit des Christentums," in the same journal, vol. VI; for a broad and admirable statement of the Ritschlian position, see Reischle's Theologie und Religions geschichte. Note 12, page 92. See references under note 19, lect- ure I. Note 13, page 98. Candid Examination of Theism, by Physicus, pp. 84 if. ; quoted by Foster, in The Finality of the Christian Religion, p. 199. Ill Note i, page 116. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. II, pp. 88, 89. Note 2, page 118. Religion and Miracle (Houghton, Mif- flin Company). Note 3, page 121. James, Pragmatism, pp. 57 ft., 189 ft. Compare Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. II, lect- ure XX. Note 4, page 123. Ward, op. cit., pp. 282, 283. Note 5, page 125. Hoffding, The Problems of Philosophy, chap. 2; Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. II, p. 82. Note 6, page 127. James, A Pluralistic Universe, pp. 395-400; Hoffding, The Philosophy of Religion, p. 23, and Problems of Philosophy, p. 66; Otto, Naturalism and Re- ligion, pp. 51 ft. (Putnam); King, Reconstruction in Theology, PP- 83 ft- Note 7, page 128. Dewey, "The Evolutionary Method as Applied to Morality," Philosophical Review, vol. XI, pp. Note 8, page 129. Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol. II, p. 81. Note 9, page 130. Otto, Naturalism and Religion, chaps. 226 NOTES 4-9; Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 185 ff., Note 10, page 133. Mach, Popular Science Lectures, p. 178. Note n, page 135. Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, chap. 3, and preface (by W. James), and Philosophy of Re- ligion, pp. 68, 165-167, 197, 247, et passim; James, A Plu- ralistic Universe, especially appendix C; compare Troeltsch, article cited above (under lecture II, note 10), p. 488. Note 12, page 137. Compare W. A. Brown, The Essence of Christianity, p. 290. Note 13, page 139. Compare Hoffding on Schleiermacher, History of Modern Philosophy, vol. II, pp. 199, 207. Note 14, page 146. A Pluralistic Universe, p. 312. Note 15, page 147. Compare Foster, Finality of the Christian Religion, p. 238. Note 1 6, page 147. A Pluralistic Universe, pp. in, 124. Note 17, page 150. Rauwenhoff, Religionsphilosophie, pp. 157-159. Note 18, page 153. See lecture I, note 18, and compare my article, "The Ultimate Test of Religious Truth: Is It Historical or Philosophical?" in The American Journal of Theology, vol. XIV, p. 25. Note 19, page 160. Knox, The Direct and Fundamental Proofs of the Christian Religion, pp. 191-196; W. A. Brown, The Essence of Christianity, chap. 8. Note 20, page 163. Browning, "Reverie." IV Note i, page 169. The World and the Individual, vol. Hi P- 395- Note 2, page 170. Ibid., vol. II, p. 359. Note 3, page 171. Ibid., vol. I, p. 468. Note 4, page 172. Ibid., vol. II, p. 292. Note 5, page 174. Studies in Good and Evil, p. 28 (Apple- tons). 227 NOTES Note 6, page 175. The World and the Individual, vol. II, PP- 399 ft- Note 7, page 183. James, The Meaning oj Truth, pp. 226-229. Note 8, page 198. The Christian Doctrine of Salvation, p. 442. Note 9, page 200. Porter, "Inquiries Concerning the Divinity of Christ," American Journal of Theology, vol. VIII, P- 13- 228 INDEX Absolute, the, 11-15, 2 8- His timelessness, 11-14, 21, 40, 182 ff. His relation to moral evil, 167-186. Absolute idealism, 5, 9-24, 40, 58. Its deductive method, 22-24. Its treatment of moral evil, 167-186. Atonement, The conception, 193. As an eternal principle in God, 194-198, 207, 214. And Christ's death, 194-196. A work in which the Chris- tian should share, 199-204, 208, 213. And social injustice, 209-214. Axioms, the product of evolu- tion, 47, 51, 152-154. Buddhism, 103, 159. Christ, 94, 158-159. In the Ritschlian theology, 32-34, 84-88, 201-202. The relation of his conscious- ness to mysticism, 86-87. His ethical consciousness, 103-104, 114. His religious consciousness, 104-105. His fundamental religious achievement, 106, no-iii. And the principle of atone- ment, 194-219. His sonship and ours, 199- 201. Sonship and atoning work, 202-204. Christianity, An historical religion, 32-34, 38, 40, 76-93. Its vital quality, 157-158. Centres in a personality, 158-159- Its capacity for progress, 159-160. Consciousness, the span of, 13-14- Continuity, the conception, 125-130, 135, 137, 187, 189-190. Critical philosophy, the, 9, 25- 3i 37-40. Dualism, In Royce's philosophy, 20, 179. In the Kantian theory of knowledge, 37, 40, 51. Done away with by pragma- tism, 51-53, 57. Eternal, the, The object of man's longing, 61-63. As experienced by the mys- tic, 63-76. 229 INDEX Eternal, the Continued. As revealed in history, 76-93. Experienced in the develop- ment of moral personality, 93-107, 142-145. Evil, moral, The problem, 164-167. Royce's conception criti- cised, 167-186. From the stand-point of ethical monotheism, 186- 219. Its origin, 188-192. Its two aspects, 204-215. Evolution, Its relation to truth, 47, 150- 160. Its conception of law, 125- 132. Experience, The true source of theology, 1-7, 23-24, 108-113. The final test of truth, 48, 142-145. Faith, A cardinal principle of Kant's philosophy, 26. A source of truth, 23-24, 29- 31, 35-36, 40, 49-53, i io- in, 142-145. 161-163, 218. Its nature, 26, 29, 34, 83, 94-95- In the Ritschlian theology, 34, 82-84, 88-89. Freedom, moral, 171-174, 183. God, His immanence, 16-22, 40, 53. 57. 105. M9-I5 . 157. 179-180. EssentiaHy active, 21, 136, 148, 187, 194. Known in experience, 59- 107, 142-145. As conceived by mysticism, 63-66, 148. His infiniteness, 147-149. His transcendence, 149-150. As external ruler of the uni- verse, 175-178. The atoning, 194-198. Hinduism, 102, 159. History, God's immanence in, 19-21, 53. 57- As a test of truth, 54. Hoffding, 135. Hypothesis, its relation to knowledge, 52. Idealism, absolute, 5, 9-24, 40, 58. Its deductive method, 22-24. Immanence of God, 16-22, 53, 57, 106, 149, 157, 179-180. Individuality, 139-140. Intellectualism, 22-24, 36, 136. James, W., 20, 135. His pluralism criticised, 145- 147. His conception of God as finite criticised, 147-149. Jesus, see Christ. Judaism, 103, 159. Kantianism, 9, 25-31, 40-41, 91. Its value for theology, 29-30. Its limitations, 37-38. 230 INDEX Knowledge, Through faith, 23-24, 30, etc. (see Faith). Its limits according to Kant, 26-28. Its purposive character, 43- 45- Through feeling, according to mysticism, 64. Law, natural, Changes in the conception, 115-132. As working hypothesis, 121- 125. The evolutionary conception, 125-132. And purpose, 128-130. Materialism, 15, 16. Metaphysics, Kant's denial that knowl- edge in this realm is possi- ble, 26-28. The Ritschlian attitude tow- ard it, 89-93. The value of empirical meta- physics, 49, 92. Mohammedanism, 103, 159. Monism, 102, 145-147. Monotheism, ethical, 21, 103. Related to the idea of the growing universe, 135- 150. As a metaphysical point of view, 135-150, 186-187. Contrasted with monism, Its treatment of the problem of moral evil, 186-219. Morality and religion, 93-107, 140. Mysticism, 63-76, 77, 94, 168. Its conception of God, 63-66. Its ideal of life, 66-67. Its conception of the soul, 67-68. The influence it exerts, 69- ?i- Its value, 71-76. In contrast to Christ's re- ligious consciousness, 86- 87. Nature, irreversible, 129. Neo-Platonism, 102. Persian religion, 102. Personality, ethical, Its significance for religion, 93-107, 139-140. Its atoning power, 206-209. Phenomenalism, 118-120. Philosophy, The critical, 9, 25-31, 37- 40. Evolutionary, 150-160. Pluralism, 145-147. Postulates, In Kant's philosophy, 30. In pragmatism, 51-52, 121- 123. Pragmatism, 5, 9, 36, 40-58, 91-93, 121 /., 148, 150- 160. The will in its relation to knowledge, 41-45. Its test of truth, 45~47 54- Its conception of time as fully real, 53. Historical character of its method, 54. Its proof of religion, 55-58, 91-93- INDEX Reality, According to absolute ideal- ism, 10-15. Not fully represented by nat- ural law, 123-124. Reason, Theoretical, 26-28, 32-33, 37- Practical, 20-31, 32-34, 37, 83- Religion, The history of, 39, 55-57, 58, 92. Mystical, 63-76. And the moral life, 93-107, 140. Revelation, historical, 76-93. The older view, 78-80. The Ritschlian view, 84-88. Ritschlianism, 5, 9, 25, 31-41, 57, 81-93. Its value, 31-36, 81-89. Its limitations, 37-39, 89-93. Romanes, 98. Royce, 13, 20, 22. His conception of evil criti- cised, 167-186. Soul, the, as conceived by the mystic, 68-69. Space, its ideality, 18-19. Span of consciousness, the, 13- 14. Spirit, the, in the thought of Paul, 93-101. Spontaneity, 126 ff., 138-141, 189-190. Stevens, G. B., 197. Supernaturalism, the older type, 5, 78-80, 117-118, 175-178. Theologia Germanica, 68, 77. Thomas a Kempis, 66. Time, Its unreality according to ab- solute idealism, 11-14. Fully real according to prag- matism, 53, 134. Truth, Its practical nature, 1-7, 23- 24, 3 6 > 45-47, etc. (see Faith). In the religious realm, 5, 23- 24, 3 1 * 34- Its relation to satisfactions, 46-47. Its relation to social experi- ence, 46-47, 54. And evolution, 47-48. Tested by history, 54-57. Its standards, 150-160. Universe, the growing, 132-150. In relation to ethical mono- theism, 135-150. Value, Value-judgments, 34. Standards of, 150-160. Will, the, its relation to knowl- edge according to prag- matism, 41-45. 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