SYNOPSIS INTRODUCTION Religion must make terms with Philosophy The present situation; breakdown of traditional basis, and existence of great body of new knowledge forming material for a new Christian philosophy. Hence, this is a moment of transition, justifying tentative attempts at reconstruction such as present Essay Problem of Essay defined. relation of "Absolute" of philosophy and God of religion PART ONE-THE CONCEPTION OF THE ABSOLUTE I. Inadequacy of the old "proofs" of the existence of God II. The modern "critical" method builds on experience. III. Acceptance of the "critical" method implies that the IV. It is possible to arrange our "categories" in an order of adequacy of truth. The Absolute is most truly conceived in terms of mind or spirit Consideration of objections V. The Absolute is good. PAGE 426-431 426 427 430 432-480 432 434 438 446 454 be a sure guide to truth of fact. A. This seems to be a postulate of moral experience 461 D. Further objection: charge of confusion between way in which men do think and way in which they ought to think C. The pragmatic answer to this objection: all real thinking is determined by practical wants 464 466 E. Final reasons for asserting goodness of Absolute, in spite of objections 469 472 VI. Preliminary indication of religious bearing of the philosophy of the Absolute Note. Some modern philosophers PART TWO-OBJECTIONS TO IDENTIFICATION OF THE ABSOLUTE I. "Absolutism" proves too much. (1) It is too ambitious for the religious mind (2) Its high claims defeat their own end (3) It ignores the fact of evil. PAGE 477 480 481-493 482 483 483 484 485 485 486 IV. It explains away the personality of God. This urged both from the orthodox and from the unorthodox side. It has no room for the religious conception of God, as (a) transcendent, (b) exercising will, (c) taking action. All these rest on the issue of personality: is there a “living God”? PART THREE-TENTATIVE ANSWER TO OBJECTIONS 487 488 494-522 I. The difficulties rest largely on a conception of personality (2) Insufficient attention to the higher types of II. This conclusion is confirmed by attention to specifically III. The view suggested is not "pantheistic" IV. Nor is it inconsistent with orthodox Christianity. Attempt to justify difference, in this point, from views of philosophers followed in Part One; and to meet the charge of intellectual dishonesty . CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 507 508 512 515 522-524 IX GOD AND THE ABSOLUTE In these days, we have small excuse for forgetting that religion is more than creed and reality richer than thought. It is equally important to remember that religious devotion is directed towards an Object, and cannot continue unless that Object is believed to be real. In most of the higher religions, the object of devotion is One God, believed to be ruler, if not creator, of all men and of the world in which they live. Religion is therefore bound up with certain beliefs about the nature of things, and hence must always settle accounts with the body of beliefs about the world which men derive from other sources. In other words, Religion must make terms with Philosophy; for Philosophy is only the most careful and accurate formulation of those beliefs. Truth is one, from 1 Cf. C. C. J. Webb, Problems in the Relations of God and Man, pp. 10, 142-3. "Religion involves a kind of apprehension or awareness, whose object is always, however, in such a sense the whole of reality, or at least the heart and centre of reality, that it is in the long run impossible for Religion to remain contented, as the aesthetic consciousness can, with an object which is merely its object, without placing it, so to say, in the centre of things, and relating to it everything in itself and in its environment, and hence committing the religious man to what the Germans call a Weltanschauung correspondent to his religion." "The religious sentiment is a sentiment for an object which is regarded as not merely its object, but as somehow the fundamental or ultimate reality." Mr. Webb admits that this last statement has a paradoxical air in view of the apparent variety of objects of worship. But he maintains that it is essentially true. "Is there not from the first in our sentiment towards the object of worship something which from the first would not be excited, except by something which is imagined as holding in itself that mystery or secret which, as the worshipper's horizon widens, we come at last to realize is the mystery of the ultimate ground of all things?" whatever source it is derived. "To tell a thinking man that he need not interpret to his reason what religion tells him of God is like saying to him, 'Be religious if you will, but you need not let your religion influence your conduct.'"'1 This has always been so. From St. Paul and the writer of the Fourth Gospel to the framers of the oecumenical creeds, Christian theology was formulated in the language, and in some relation to the problems, of the philosophy of the time. And the elaboration of the grounds in reason on which it rests, and of the consequences which may be deduced from it, was accomplished by the Schoolmen in terms of the Scholastic Philosophy. In our own time the same work has yet to be done. But the most salient fact in the present situation is the breakdown of the traditional basis. We have to remember that the collapse of mediaevalism which we associate for most purposes with the Renaissance and Reformation is, in the special sphere of "Natural Theology," delayed till the time of Kant. Descartes and Locke changed much; but in this sphere they mostly retained the demonstrative methods of the Schoolmen. Each thought it possible to give a demonstrative proof of the existence of God, analogous to the proof of a geometrical proposition. But these have now little or no living influence. "That vast literature of proofs of God's existence drawn from the order of nature, which a century ago seemed so overwhelmingly convincing, to-day does little more than gather dust in libraries, for the simple reason that our generation has ceased to believe in the kind of God it argued for. Whatever sort of being God may be, we know to-day that he is nevermore that mere external inventor of 'contrivances' intended to make manifest his 'glory,' in which our great-grandfathers took such satisfaction." 1 Aubrey Moore in Lux Mundi, p. 89. In this rejection there is a tone of assurance which implies the possession of a clear and positive view of the nature of the world. This assurance is not without justification. When Mr. Blatchford of the Clarion began his hostile examination of the Christian religion with a chapter entitled, "What I can and what I cannot believe," his intellectual arrogance was generally and rightly condemned. But had he written "we" instead of "I," he would have been putting forward a canon which, though undoubtedly subject to abuse, is, in some degree, both legitimate and necessary. implies the assumption that the opinion of modern times is worth more than that of antiquity. But if we believe in intellectual development, we must admit an element of truth in such a position. It Certainly Securus judicat orbis terrarum; but this maxim can only help us if interpreted by a theory of Evolution. It does not proclaim a democracy of opinion, to which all times and places are alike. That way lies chaos. Thus the apologist appeals in favour of the religious view of the world to the consensus gentium. But the sceptic retorts that the unanimity is only verbal, not real. The believer in Jehovah is a witness against Baal, and the believer in Baal is a witness against Jehovah. The same diversity prevails in the sphere of reasoned argument. "There is not a single proof of natural theology of which the negative has not been maintained as vigorously as the affirmative."1 The edge of this scepticism can only be turned by the familiar conception of Development. If different and inconsistent religious beliefs are viewed, not as on a level with one another, but as different stages in the development of one thing, it is possible to reduce the material to some sort of order. The history of religions will present a picture, not simply of chaos, but of "order dawning on chaos." In that case, the meaning of the whole process is to be sought in its maturest 1 Leslie Stephen, An Agnostic's Apology, p. 13. |