{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37531/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37531","id":"gutenberg_37531","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37531","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Sociology","Christian sociology","Theology, Doctrinal -- History -- 20th century"],"text":"\n\n\n\nProduced by Barbara Tozier, Chris Pinfield, Bill Tozier\nand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n THEOLOGY AND THE\n SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n\n A STUDY OF THE RELATIONS OF THE\n SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THEOLOGY\n\n BY\n HENRY CHURCHILL KING\n\n PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY\n IN OBERLIN COLLEGE\n\n _SECOND EDITION_\n\n HODDER & STOUGHTON\n NEW YORK\n GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1902\n BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n\n Set up and electrotyped September, 1902\n Reprinted February, 1904;\n July, 1907; August, 1910; April, 1912.\n\n To the Members of the\n Harvard Summer School of Theology\n\n OF THE YEAR 1901\n IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR INTEREST IN THE LECTURES\n THAT FORMED THE BASIS OF THIS BOOK\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThere is no attempt in this book to present a complete system of\ntheology, though much of such a system is passed in review, but only\nto study a special phase of theological thinking. The precise theme of\nthe book is the relations of the social consciousness to theology.\nThis is the subject upon which the writer was asked to lecture at the\nHarvard Summer School of Theology of 1901; and the book has grown out\nof the lectures there given. In preparing the book for the press,\nhowever, the lecture form has been entirely abandoned, and\nconsiderable material added.\n\nThe importance of the theme seems to justify a somewhat thorough-going\ntreatment. If one believes at all in the presence of God in\nhistory--and the Christian can have no doubt here--he must be\nprofoundly interested in such a phenomenon as the steady growth of the\nsocial consciousness. Hardly any inner characteristic of our time has\na stronger historical justification than that consciousness; and it\nhas carried the reason and conscience of the men of this generation in\nrare degree. Having its own comparatively independent development, and\nyet making an ethical demand that is thoroughly Christian, it\nfurnishes an almost ideal standpoint from which to review our\ntheological statements, and, at the same time, a valuable test of\ntheir really Christian quality.\n\nIn attempting, then, a careful study of the relations of the social\nconsciousness to theology, this book aims, first, definitely to get at\nthe real meaning of the social consciousness as the theologian must\nview it, and so to bring clearly into mind the unconscious assumptions\nof the social consciousness itself; and then to trace out the\ninfluence of the social consciousness upon the conception of religion,\nand upon theological doctrine. The larger portion of the book is\nnaturally given to the influence upon theological doctrine; and to\nmake the discussion here as pointed as possible, the different\nelements of the social consciousness are considered separately.\n\nIt should be noted, however, that the question raised is not the\nhistorical one, How, as a matter of fact, has the social consciousness\nmodified the conception of religion or the statement of theological\ndoctrine? but the theoretical one, How should the social consciousness\nnaturally affect religion and doctrine? In this sense, the result\nmight be called, in President Hyde's phrase, a \"social theology\"; but,\nas I believe that the social consciousness is at bottom only a true\nsense of the fully personal, I prefer myself to think of the present\nbook as only carrying out in more detail the contention of my\n_Reconstruction in Theology_--that theology should aim at a\nrestatement of doctrine in strictly personal terms. So conceived, in\nspite of its casual origin, this book follows very naturally upon the\nprevious book. Some of the same topics necessarily recur here; and\nreferences to the _Reconstruction_ have been freely made, in order to\navoid all unnecessary repetition.\n\nThat this social sense of the fully personal has finally a real and\ndefinite contribution to make to theology, I cannot doubt. I can only\nhope that the present discussion may be found at least suggestive,\nparticularly in the analysis of the social consciousness, and in the\ntreatment of mysticism and of the ethical in religion, as well as in\nthe consideration of the special influence of the elements of the\nsocial consciousness upon the restatement of doctrine. Of the\ndoctrinal applications, the application to the problem of redemption\nmay be considered, perhaps, of most significance.\n\n HENRY CHURCHILL KING.\n\n OBERLIN COLLEGE, June, 1902.\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n\n INTRODUCTION\n PAGE\n THE THEME 1\n\n\n THE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n FOR THEOLOGY\n\n INTRODUCTION\n\n THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN 5\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n\n THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 9\n I. The Sense of the Like-Mindedness of Men 9\n II. The Sense of the Mutual Influence of Men 11\n 1. Contributing Lines of Thought 11\n 2. The Threefold Form of the Conviction 13\n III. The Sense of the Value and Sacredness of the Person 16\n IV. The Sense of Obligation 18\n V. The Sense of Love 20\n\n\n CHAPTER II\n\n THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN\n EXPRESSION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS 23\n I. The Value of the Analogy 23\n II. The Inevitable Inadequacy of the Analogy 24\n 1. It Comes from the Sub-personal World 24\n 2. Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves 24\n 3. Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything 25\n III. The Analogy Tested by the Definition of the Social\n Consciousness 27\n\n\n CHAPTER III\n\n THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n IS THE REFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME 29\n I. The Question 29\n II. Otherwise, No Moral World at all 30\n 1. The Prerequisites of a Moral World 30\n (1) A Sphere of Law 30\n (2) Ethical Freedom 30\n (3) Some Power of Accomplishment 31\n (4) Members One of Another 32\n 2. The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the\n Social Consciousness 32\n\n\n CHAPTER IV\n\n THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL\n CONSCIOUSNESS 35\n I. How can it be, Metaphysically, that we do Influence\n One Another? 35\n 1. Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection 36\n 2. We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity 37\n 3. Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity 39\n 4. Grounded in the Immanence of God 40\n II. What is Required for the Final Positive Justification of\n the Social Consciousness, as Ethical? 44\n 1. Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God 44\n 2. God's Sharing in our Life 48\n 3. The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social\n Consciousness 49\n\n\n THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n UPON THE CONCEPTION OF RELIGION\n\n INTRODUCTION 53\n\n\n CHAPTER V\n\n THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY\n MYSTICAL 55\n I. What is the Falsely Mystical? 55\n 1. Nash's Definition 55\n 2. Herrmann's Definition 56\n II. The Objections of the Social Consciousness to the Falsely\n Mystical 57\n 1. Unethical 58\n 2. Does not Give a Really Personal God 58\n 3. Belittles the Personal in Man 59\n 4. Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian 62\n\n\n CHAPTER VI\n\n THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL\n RELATION IN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL 66\n I. The Social Consciousness Tends Positively to Emphasize\n the Personal Relation in Religion 66\n 1. Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal 66\n 2. Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in\n Religion 67\n 3. Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life\n in Religion 68\n II. The Social Consciousness thus Keeps the Truly Mystical 70\n 1. The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements\n in Mysticism 71\n (1) Emotion, the Test 71\n (2) Subjective Tendency 72\n (3) Underestimating the Historical 72\n (4) Tendency toward Vagueness 73\n (5) Tendency toward Pantheism 73\n (6) Tendency to Extravagant Symbolism 76\n 2. The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man 78\n 3. The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion 82\n\n\n CHAPTER VII\n\n THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION 86\n I. The Pressure of the Problem 86\n II. The Statement of the Problem 87\n III. The Answer 89\n 1. Involved in Relation to Christ 89\n 2. The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command 90\n 3. Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts 91\n 4. Communion with God, Through Harmony with His\n Ethical Will 92\n 5. The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart 92\n 6. Sharing the Life of God 93\n 7. Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life 94\n 8. The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ,\n Ethically Conditioned 96\n 9. The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God 98\n\n\n CHAPTER VIII\n\n THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE\n HISTORICALLY CHRISTIAN 102\n I. The Social Consciousness Needs Historical Justification 102\n II. Christianity's Response to this Need 103\n\n\n THE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE\n\n\n CHAPTER IX\n\n GENERAL RESULTS 105\n I. The Conception of Theology in Personal Terms 106\n II. The Fatherhood of God, as the Determining Principle\n in Theology 109\n III. Christ's Own Social Emphases 111\n IV. The Reflection in Theology of the Changes in the Conception\n of Religion 113\n\n\n CHAPTER X\n\n THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS\n OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 115\n I. No Prime Favorites with God 116\n II. The Great Universal Qualities and Interests, the Most\n Valuable 117\n III. Essential Likeness Under very Diverse Forms 121\n IV. As Applied to the Question of Immortality 124\n V. Consequent Larger Sympathy with Men, Faith in Men,\n and Hope for Men 127\n VI. Judgment According to Light, and the Moral Reality of\n the Future Life 132\n\n\n CHAPTER XI\n\n THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL\n INFLUENCE OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY 136\n I. The Real Unity of the Race 136\n II. Deepening the Sense of Sin 139\n III. Mutual Influence for Good in the Attainment of Character 145\n 1. Application to the Problem of Redemption 147\n 2. The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of\n Substitution and Propitiation 150\n IV. Mutual Influence for Good in our Personal Relation to God 160\n 1. In Coming into the Kingdom 160\n 2. In Fellowship within the Kingdom 162\n 3. In Intercessory Prayer 164\n V. Mutual Influence for Good in Confessions of Faith 167\n 1. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Impossible 169\n 2. Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Undesirable 171\n VI. The Consequent Importance of the Doctrine of the Church 177\n\n\n CHAPTER XII\n\n THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND\n SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON UPON THEOLOGY 179\n I. The Recognition of the Personal in Man 180\n 1. Man's Personal Separateness from God 180\n 2. Emphasis upon Man's Moral Initiative 181\n 3. Man, a Child of God 183\n II. The Recognition of the Personal in Christ 184\n 1. Christ, a Personal Revelation of God 184\n 2. Emphasizing the Moral and Spiritual in Asserting\n the Supremacy of Christ 185\n 3. The Moral and Spiritual Grounds of the Supremacy\n of Christ 188\n (1) The Greatest in the Greatest Sphere 188\n (2) The Sinless and Impenitent One 192\n (3) Consciously Rises to the Highest Ideal 194\n (4) Realizes the Character of God 195\n (5) Consciously Able to Redeem All Men 196\n (6) Complete Normality under this Transcendent\n God-Consciousness and Sense of Mission 197\n (7) The Only Person Who can call out Absolute Trust 198\n (8) The One, in Whom God Certainly Finds Us 199\n (9) The Ideal Realized 200\n 4. Christ's Double Uniqueness 201\n 5. The Increasing Sense of Our Kinship with Christ,\n and of His Reality 205\n III. The Recognition of the Personal in God. 207\n 1. The Steady Carrying Through of the Completely Personal\n in the Conception of God. Guarding the Conception 208\n 2. God is Always the Completely Personal God 212\n (1) Consequent Relation of God to \"Eternal Truths\" 212\n (2) Eternal Creation 214\n (3) The Unity and Unchangeableness of God 216\n (4) The Limitations of the Conception of Immanence 217\n 3. Deepening the Thought of the Fatherhood of God 218\n (1) History, no Mere Natural Process 218\n (2) God, the Great Servant 219\n (3) No Divine Arbitrariness 220\n (4) The Passibility of God 221\n 4. As to the Doctrine of a Social Trinity 222\n 5. Pre\u00ebminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing\n all God's Relations with Men 226\n (1) Reflected in Christ 226\n (2) In Creation 230\n (3) In Providence 232\n (4) In Our Personal Religious Life 233\n (5) In the Judgment 237\n (6) In the Future Life 240\n\n\nTHEOLOGY AND THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n_THE THEME_\n\n\nNo theologian can be excused to-day from a careful study of the\nrelations of theology and the social consciousness. Whether this study\nbecomes a formal investigation or not, the social consciousness is so\ndeep and significant a phenomenon in the ethical life of our time,\nthat it cannot be ignored by the theologian who means to bring his\nmessage to men really home. This book is written in the conviction\nthat, while men are thus moved as never before by a deep sense of\nmutual influence and obligation, they have also as deep and genuine an\ninterest as ever in the really greatest questions of religion and\ntheology. Interests so significant and so akin cannot long remain\nisolated in the mind. They are certain soon profoundly to influence\neach other. And this mutual influence of theology and the social\nconsciousness form the theme of this book.\n\nTwo questions are naturally involved in this theme. First: Has\ntheology given any help, or has it any help to give, to the social\nconsciousness?--the question of the first division of the book.\nSecond: Has the social consciousness made any contribution, or has it\nany contribution to make, to theology?--the question of the second and\nthird divisions. That is to say: On the one hand, Have the great facts\nwhich theology studies any help to give to the man who faces the\nproblem of social progress--of the steady elevation of the race? On\nthe other hand, Has the great fact of the immensely quickened social\nconsciousness of our time, with all that it means, any help to give to\nthe theologian in his attempt to bring the great Christian truths\nreally home to men, to make them more real, more rational, more vital?\n\nOr again: On the one hand, do theological doctrines--the most adequate\nstatements we can make of the great Christian truths--best explain and\nbest ground the social consciousness, so as best to bring our entire\nthought in this sphere of the social into unity? Is the Christian\ntruth so great that it not only includes all that is true in this new\nsocial consciousness--is fully able to take it up into itself and to\nmake it feel at home there--but also, so great that it alone can give\nthe social consciousness its fullest meaning, alone enable it to\nunderstand itself, and alone furnish it adequate motive and power? Is\nthe social consciousness, in truth, only a disguised statement of\nChristian convictions, and does it really require the Christian\nreligion and its thoughtful expression to complete itself? Must the\nsocial consciousness say, when it comes to full self-knowledge,--I am\nmyself an unmeaning and unjustified by-product, if there is not a God\nin the full Christian sense? and, so saying, confirm again the great\nChristian truths? This is the question of the first division.\n\nOn the other hand, since the task of any given theologian is\nnecessarily temporary, and since any marked modification of the\nconsciousness of men will inevitably demand some restatement of\ntheological doctrine, the question here becomes--To what changed\npoints of view in religion and theology, to what restatements of\ndoctrine, and so to what truer appreciation of Christian truth, does\nthe new social consciousness naturally lead? How do the affirmations\nof the social consciousness, as the outcome of a careful, inductive\nstudy of the social evolution of the race, affect our theological\nstatements? This is the question of the second and third divisions of\nthe book.\n\nOur discussion must of course assume and build on the conclusions of\nsociology, and of New Testament theology, especially the conclusions\nconcerning the social teaching of Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REAL MEANING OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS FOR THEOLOGY\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n_THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE THEOLOGIAN_\n\n\nFirst, then, what is the real meaning of the social consciousness, as\nthe theologian must view it? The answer to this question involves a\npreliminary one: What is the point of view of the theologian in any\ninvestigation? One can only give his own answer.\n\nFirst of all, the theologian, as such, is an _interpreter_, not a\ntracer of causal connections. He builds everywhere upon the scientific\ninvestigator, and takes from him the statement of facts and processes.\nWith these he has primarily nothing to do. With reference to the\nsocial consciousness, therefore, he does not attempt to do over again\nthe work of the sociologist; he asks only, What does the social\nconsciousness, in the light of the whole of life and thought, mean;\nnot, How did it come about?\n\nThe theologian, too, is a _believer in the supremacy of spiritual\ninterests_; this is his central contention. He affirms strenuously,\nwith the scientific worker, the place and value of the mechanical; but\nhe is certain that the mechanical can understand itself even, only as\nit is seen to be simple means, and thus clearly subordinate in\nsignificance. His problem is, therefore, everywhere, that of ideal\ninterpretation, not of mechanical explanation. But, while he has\nnothing to do with the scientific tracing of immediate causal\nconnections, he recognizes causality itself as requiring an ultimate\nexplanation, that cannot be mechanically given. The theologian must be\nin this, then, an _ideal_ interpreter, and an inquirer after the\n_ultimate_ cause.\n\nThe theologian assumes, moreover, the legitimacy and value of the fact\nof _religion_; for theology is simply the thoughtful, comprehensive,\nand unified expression of what religion means to us. The meaning of\nthe social consciousness to the theologian involves, therefore, at\nonce the question of its relation to religious conviction.\n\nThe point of view of the Christian theologian involves, besides, the\n_reality of the personal God_ in personal relation to persons.\nTheology is in earnest in its thought of God, and knows that God is\neverywhere to be taken into account; that, if there is a God at all,\nhe is not to be exiled into some corner of his universe, but is\nintimately concerned in all, is at the very heart of all; and that,\ntherefore, it is not a matter of merely curious interest or of\nsubsidiary inquiry, whether we are to look at our questions with God\nin mind.\n\nFinally, the Christian theologian tries everywhere to make his point\nof view _the point of view of Christ_. The theology, upon which he\nultimately stakes his all, is Christ's theology. He knows that there\nis much concerning which he cannot refuse to think, but upon which\nChrist has not expressed himself either explicitly or by clear\ninference; but in all this unavoidable supplementary thinking he aims\nto be absolutely loyal to the spirit of Christ.\n\nFrom this point of view of the Christian theologian, now, what does\nthe social consciousness mean? The answer may be given under four\nheads: (1) the definition of the social consciousness; (2) the\ninadequacy of the analogy of the organism, as an expression of the\nsocial consciousness; (3) the necessity of the facts, of which the\nsocial consciousness is the reflection, if ideal interests are to be\nsupreme; (4) the ultimate explanation and ground of the social\nconsciousness.\n\nThese four topics form the subjects of the four chapters of the first\ndivision of our inquiry.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n_THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_\n\n\nThe simplest and probably the most accurate single expression we can\ngive to the social consciousness, is to say that it is a growing sense\nof the real brotherhood of men. But five elements seem plainly\ninvolved in this, and may be profitably separated in our thought, if\nthat is to be clear and definite:--a deepening sense (1) of the\nlikeness or like-mindedness of men, (2) of their mutual influence, (3)\nof the value and sacredness of the person, (4) of mutual obligation,\nand (5) of love.\n\n\nI. THE SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN[1]\n\nIf a society is \"a group of like-minded individuals,\" if the\n\"all-essential\" requisites for co\u00f6peration are \"like-mindedness and\nconsciousness of kind,\" as Giddings tells us, then certainly a prime\nelement in the social consciousness is likeness and the sense of it--a\ngrowing sense of the mental and moral resemblance and \"potential\nresemblance\" of all men, and of all classes of men, though not\nequality of powers.\n\n\"Equality of need\" among men, too,[2] to which sociology comes as one\nof its surest conclusions, implies a common capacity, even if in\nvarying degrees, to enter into the most fundamental interests of life,\nand so points unmistakably to the essential likeness of men in the\nmost important things.\n\nSo, too, sociology's unquestioning assertion that both smaller and\nlarger groups of men constantly tend toward unity, assumes potential\nresemblance.\n\nAnd the uniform experience and prescription of social workers, that\n_really_ knowing \"how the other half lives\" brings increasing\nsympathy, also affirm the fundamental likeness of men. Every\npainstaking investigation of a social question comes out at some point\nor other with a fresh discovery of a previously hidden, underlying\nresemblance between classes of men.\n\nFrom the careful, inductive study of social evolution, too, the men of\nour day see, as no other generation has seen, that the great force\nalways and everywhere at work in that evolution has been likeness and\nthe consciousness of it.\n\nFor all these reasons, this generation believes, as men never believed\nbefore, in the essential like-mindedness of men; and this deepening\nsense of the like-mindedness of men is certainly one element in the\nmodern social consciousness.\n\n\nII. THE SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN\n\nA second element in the social consciousness, and, perhaps, that which\nhas most of all characterized it through the larger period of its\ngrowth, is the strong sense of the mutual influence of men--that we\nare all \"members one of another.\"\n\n1. _Contributing Lines of Thought._--It is worth seeing how firmly\nplanted the idea is. Several lines of thought have united to induce\nmen to emphasize--perhaps even to over-emphasize--this way of thinking\nof society. The influence of natural science, in the first place, has\nbeen inevitably in this direction. Its root idea of the universality\nof law forces upon one the thought of a world which is a _coherent_\nwhole, a unity with universal forces in it, in which every part is\ninextricably connected with every other. So, too, the acceptance of\nthe theory of evolution has led science to regard the whole history of\nthe physical universe as an organic growth.\n\nPsychology, also, with its present-day emphasis, in Baldwin and Royce,\nupon the constant presence and fundamental character of _imitation_,\nand its insistence upon the still more fundamental impulsiveness of\nconsciousness which Dewey believes underlies imitation,[3] is really\nproclaiming exactly this element of the social consciousness. And the\nwhole assertion by the later psychology of the unity of man--mind and\nbody, and of the complex intertwining of all the functions of the\nmind, is in closest harmony with a similar view of society.\n\nPhilosophy, too, is exerting all along a half-unconscious pressure\ntoward the thought of the organic unity of society. That philosophy\nmay exist at all, it must start from the assumption of a universe, a\nreal unity of truth, and its problem is to find a _discerned_ unity.\nIt knows no unrelated being, and, consequently, whether it\ntheoretically accepts the formulation or not, it must admit that, as a\nmatter of fact, to be is to be in relations. It asserts as a universal\nfact, what natural science and psychology both affirm in their own\nrespective spheres, the concrete relatedness of all. It cannot well\ndeny the same thought when applied to society. Its repeated attempts,\nmoreover, to conceive all as a developing unity, and the profound\ninfluence of the analogy of the organism upon its history, both\nfurther sustain the organic view of society.\n\nChristianity, as well, has been a powerful factor in this direction\nfrom the beginning, for it really first gave the Idea of Humanity.[4]\n\n2. _The Threefold Form of the Conviction._--Sustained, now, by all\nthese movements in natural science, psychology, philosophy, and\nChristianity, this thought of the mutual influence of men has taken\nthree forms: that mutual influence is inevitable, isolation\nimpossible; that mutual influence is desirable, isolation to be\nshunned; that mutual influence is indispensable, isolation blighting.\n\n(1) This second element in the social consciousness has meant, then,\nin the first place, a growing sense of the inevitableness of the\nmutual influence of all men, and of all classes of men; that we are\nall parts of one whole, each part unavoidably affected by every other;\nthat we are bound up in one bundle of life with all men, and cannot\nlive an isolated life if we would; that we do influence one another\nwhether we will or not, and tend unconsciously to draw others to our\nlevel and are ourselves drawn toward theirs; that we joy and suffer\ntogether whether we will or not, and grow or deteriorate together.\n\n(2) But the mutual influence of men means more than this: not only\nthat we do inevitably affect one another in living out our own life,\nbut a growing sense of the fact that we are obviously not intended to\ncome to our best in independence of one another; that we are made on\nso large a plan that we cannot come to our best alone; that we are\nevidently made for personal relations, and that, therefore, largeness\nof life for ourselves depends on our entering into the life of others.\n\n(3) But even more than this is true. It is not only that entering into\nthe life of others is a help in my life, it is _the_ great help, the\none great means, the indispensable, the essential condition of all\nlargeness of life; it is the very meaning of life,--life itself. We\nare to find our life only in losing our life. Life is the fulfilment\nof relations. When we try to run away from the variety and complexity\nof these relations, we are running away from life itself. The\nindispensableness of these relations to others is assumed, also, in\nthe assertion by the sociologist of an evolution toward a society, at\nonce more and more complex, and more and more perfect.\n\nBut if I grow in the growth of another, the other grows in my growth.\nIf the only thing of value that I can finally give is myself, the\nvalue of that gift depends upon the largeness and richness of the self\ngiven. For love's own sake, therefore, I must grow, must strive to\nbring to its highest perfection that work which is given me to do. A\nperson is a social being called to contribute to the whole, in the\nline of his own best possibilities. One's largest ministry to others\nis to be rendered, then, through sacred regard for one's own calling,\nconsidered as exactly his place of largest service. Or, to put it the\nother way: I can come to my best only in work so great and in\nassociations so large that I may lose myself in them in perfect\nobjectivity.\n\nThe mutual influence of men, therefore, is unavoidable, is desirable,\nis indispensable; isolation impossible, hindering, blighting. This is\nthe true solidarity of the race, in which there is no fiction, no\nhiding in the inconceivable, and no pretense.\n\n\nIII. THE SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF THE PERSON\n\nThe third element in the social consciousness, the sense of the value\nand sacredness of the person, follows naturally from the sense of\nlike-mindedness and of mutual influence, but needs distinct and\nemphatic statement.\n\nIt is less easily separable than the other elements named, and,\nindeed, may be made to include all the others, and does, in a way,\ncarry all with it. Thus broadly conceived, it has seemed to the writer\nthat--with the return to the historical Christ--it might well be\ncalled the most notable moral characteristic of our time.[5] But,\nthough less easily and definitely discriminated, one who knows deeply\nthe modern social consciousness would surely feel that the very heart\nof it had been omitted, if this growing sense of the value and\nsacredness of the person did not come to strong expression. Reverence\nfor personality--the steadily deepening sense that every person has a\nvalue not to be measured in anything else, and is in himself sacred to\nGod and man--this it is which marks unmistakably every step in the\nprogress of the individual and of the race. Without it, whatever the\nother marks of civilization, you have only tyranny and slavery; with\nit, though every trace of luxury and scientific invention be lacking,\nyou have the perfection of human relations.\n\nThis sense of the value and sacredness of the person not only\ncharacterizes increasingly the whole social and moral evolution of the\nrace, but it is to be seen in the clearly conscious demand for\nequality of rights, and, especially--to take a single example--in the\ngrowing recognition that the child is an individual with his own\nrights; that he has a personality of his own of a sanctity inviolable\nby the parent; that there are clear bounds beyond which no one may go\nwithout personal outrage. The recognition by psychology of respect for\npersonality as one of the three or four most fundamental\nconditions--if not the most essential of all--of happiness, of\ncharacter, and of influence, is explicit confirmation of the truth of\nthis element of the social consciousness.\n\n\nIV. THE SENSE OF OBLIGATION\n\nBut the elements of the social consciousness already named lead\ndirectly to a growing sense of obligation. Every man carries in\nhimself his only possible standard of measurement of all else. A\ngrowing sense of the likeness of other men to himself quickens at\nonce, therefore, the sense of obligation, and leads naturally to the\nGolden Rule. Recognition of mutual influence, too, inevitably carries\nwith it a deeper sense of obligation; for, if we do affect others\nconstantly, then we are manifestly under obligation not only to do\ndirect service to others, but so to order our own lives as to help,\nnot to hinder, others. The sense of the value and sacredness of the\nperson plainly looks to the same deepening of obligation.\n\nAs an element of the social consciousness, the sense of obligation\nmeans for a given individual, a growing sense of responsibility for\nall; and for society at large an increase in the number of those who\nfeel the obligation to serve.\n\nThe growth in each of these directions cannot be questioned. There is\nno privileged class, in whose own consciences there is not being\nrecognized more and more the right of the claim that they must justify\nthemselves by service which shall be as unique as their privilege. In\nconsequence, the conception of the governing classes is steadily\nchanging, for both the governed and the governing, to some recognition\nof Christ's principle, that he who would be first must be servant of\nall. The sharp insistence of the sociologist that \"organization must\nbe for the organized\" expresses the same thought. One must add\nsociology's double assertion, that society is really advancing toward\nits goal, and yet that a chief condition of the progress of society is\nunselfish leadership.[6] This can only mean that there is,\nincreasingly, unselfish leadership, more and more of conscious,\nwilling co\u00f6peration on the part of men in forwarding the social\nevolution.\n\nNone of us can return to the older attitude of comparative\nindifference, nor can we honestly defend it. We do have obligations\nand we own them; we are judging ourselves increasingly by Christ's\ntest of ministering love.\n\n\nV. THE SENSE OF LOVE\n\nAnd the social consciousness ends necessarily in love, in the broader,\nethical meaning of that word. We shall never feel that the social\nconsciousness is complete, short of real love. All the other elements\nof the social consciousness lead to love and are included in it. Even\nthe sociologist must bring in as necessary results of the\nconsciousness of kind--sympathy, affection, and desire for the\nrecognition of others;[7] and he finds these always more or less\ndistinctly at work among men.\n\nThese further considerations from the study of evolution confirm this\nresult: that man is pre\u00ebminently the social animal;[8] that with man\nwe have clearly reached the stage of persons and of personal\nrelations;[9] that the very existence and development of man required\nlove at every step;[10] and that the chief moral significance of man's\nprolonged infancy is probably to be found in the necessary calling out\nof love.[11]\n\nSo, too, it has become constantly more and more clear that our\nobligation, what we owe to others, is ourselves; and the giving of the\nself is love. It seems to be thrust home upon social workers\neverywhere that there is no solution of any social problem without a\npersonal self-giving in some way on the part of some; that there is no\ncheaper way than this very costly one of love, of the giving of\nourselves--whether in the family, or in charity, or in criminology.\n\nThe point, already noted, that the progress of society depends on\nleaders who will serve with unselfish devotion, is only another\nemphasis upon love as an indispensable element of the social\nconsciousness.\n\nAnd the social goal--equality, brotherhood, liberty, when these terms\nare given any adequate ethical content--is absolutely unthinkable in\nany really vital sense without love.\n\nAny attempted definition of love, moreover, resolves at once into what\nwe mean by the social consciousness. If we define love as the giving\nof self, this is exactly what, with growing clearness and insistence,\nthe social consciousness demands. If with Herrmann we call love, \"joy\nin personal life\"--joy, that is, in the revelation of personal life,\nthis can only come in that trustful, reverent, self-surrendering\nassociation to which the social consciousness exhorts. If with Edwards\nwe call love, willing the highest and completest good of all, we reach\nthe same result. Or if with Christ in the Beatitudes, or with Paul in\nthe thirteenth of I Corinthians, we study the characteristics of love,\nwe shall hardly doubt that a complete social consciousness must have\nthese marks of love.\n\nThese elements, then, make up the social consciousness: the sense of\nlike-mindedness, of mutual influence, of the value and sacredness of\nthe person, of obligation, and of love; and all these, with their\nimplied demands, only point to what a person must be if he is to be\nfully personal.\n\nWith this definition in mind, we may now ask, whether the analogy of\nthe organism can adequately express the social consciousness.\n\n[1] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, pp. 6, 10, 65, 66, 77.\n\n[2] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 324.\n\n[3] See _The New World_, Sept., 1898, p. 516.\n\n[4] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 211.\n\n[5] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chap. IX, pp, 169 ff.\n\n[6] See Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 302, 320-322.\n\n[7] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, pp. 65, 66.\n\n[8] Cf. Giddings, _Op. cit._, p. 241.\n\n[9] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 92-96.\n\n[10] Cf. Drummond, _The Ascent of Man_, pp. 272 ff.\n\n[11] Cf. John Fiske, _The Destiny of Man_, p. 74; Drummond, _Op.\ncit._, p. 279 ff.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n_THE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY OF THE ORGANISM AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE\nSOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_[12]\n\n\nI. THE VALUE OF THE ANALOGY\n\nThe analogy of the organism has played so large a part in the history\nof thought, especially in the consideration of ethical and social\nquestions, that it is well worth while to ask exactly how far this\nanalogy is adequate, although the danger of the abuse of the analogy\nis probably somewhat less than formerly.\n\nIt may be said at once that it is, undoubtedly, the very best\nillustration of these social relations that we can draw from nature,\nand it is of real value. It has had, moreover, as already indicated, a\nmost influential and largely honorable history in the development of\nthe thought of men. Its classical expression is in the epoch-making\ntwelfth chapter of I Corinthians, which makes so plain the ethical\napplications of the analogy.\n\n\nII. THE INEVITABLE INADEQUACY OF THE ANALOGY\n\n1. _Comes from the Sub-personal World._--But it ought clearly to be\nseen, on the other hand, that, considered as a complete expression of\nthe social consciousness, it is necessarily inadequate; and it is of\nmoment that we should not be dominated by it. Too often it has been\nmade to cover the entire ground, as though in itself it were a\ncomplete expression and final explanation of the social consciousness,\ninstead of a quite incomplete illustration. For, in the first place,\nthe very fact that the analogy comes from the physical world, from the\nsub-personal realm, makes it certain that it must fail at vital points\nin the expression of what is peculiarly a personal and ethical fact.\nWe cannot safely argue directly from the physical illustration to\nethical propositions.\n\n2. _Access to Reality, Only Through Ourselves._--Moreover, in this day\nof extraordinary attention to the physical world, it is particularly\nimportant that we should keep constantly in mind that we have direct\naccess to reality only in ourselves; that man is himself necessarily\nthe only key which we can use for any ultimate understanding of\nanything; or, as Paulsen puts it, \"I know reality as it is in itself,\nin so far as I am real myself, or in so far as it is, or is like, that\nwhich I am, namely, spirit.\"[13] We are not to forget that, in very\ntruth, we know _better_ what we mean by persons and personal\nrelations, than we do what we mean by members of a body and by organic\nrelations; and, further, that in point of fact, all those metaphysical\nnotions by which we strive to think things are ultimately derived from\nourselves; and that then we illogically turn back upon our own minds,\nfrom which all these notions came, to explain the mind in the same\nsecondary way in which we explain other things.\n\n3. _Mistaken Passion for Construing Everything._--Natural science,\nwith its sole problem of the tracing of immediate causal connections,\nnaturally provokes a persistent, but nevertheless thoroughly mistaken,\n\"passion,\" as Lotze calls it,[14] \"for construing everything,\"--even\nthe most real and final reality, spirit; which wishes to see even this\nreal and final reality explained as the mechanical result of the\ncombination of simpler elements, themselves, it is to be noted,\nfinally absolutely inexplicable. Such perverse attempts will be widely\nhailed, by many who do not understand themselves, as highly\nscientific. And one who refuses to enter upon such investigations will\nbe criticized by such minds as \"hardly getting into grips with his\nsubject.\"\n\nBut it is a false application of the scientific instinct that leads\none to seek mechanical explanation for the final reality, or that\nurges to precision of formulation beyond that warranted by the data.\nIt is from exactly this falsely scientific bias that theology needs\ndeliverance. \"For,\" as Aristotle reminds us, \"it is the mark of a man\nof culture to try to attain exactness in each kind of knowledge just\nso far as the nature of the subject allows.\" There is a wise\nagnosticism that is violated alike by negative and by positive\ndogmatism. It is often overlooked that there is an over-wise\nradicalism that assumes a knowledge of the depth of the finite and\ninfinite, quite as insistent and dogmatic as the view it supposes\nitself to be opposing. \"I know it is not so,\" it ought not to need to\nbe said, is not agnosticism.\n\nThe guiding principle in a truly scientific theology is this, as Lotze\nsuggests: Just so far as changing action depends upon altering\nconditions, we have explanatory and constructive problems to solve,\nand no farther. No philosophical view can do without a simply given\nreality. And we shall never succeed in understanding by what machinery\nreality is manufactured--in \"deducing the whole positive content of\nreality from mere modifications of formal conditions.\"[15]\n\nWe shall not allow ourselves to be misled, therefore, by the\nscientific sound of the _detailed_ application of the analogy of the\norganism to the facts of the social consciousness. And it is a\nsatisfaction to see that the clearest sociological writers are coming\nto agree that there is strictly no \"social mind\" that can be affirmed\nto exist as a separate reality, supposed to answer to society\nconceived in its totality as an organism.\n\n\nIII. THE ANALOGY TESTED BY THE DEFINITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS\n\nWhen, now, we test the analogy of the organism by its competency to\nexpress the full meaning of the social consciousness, as it has been\ndefined, we must say that the analogy but feebly expresses the\nlikeness of men; it best expresses the inevitableness of mutual\ninfluence, though even here there is no understandable ultimate\nexplanation; it fairly expresses the desirableness and indispensableness\nof mutual influence, but, of course, with entire lack of ethical\nmeaning; and it quite fails to express the sense of the value and the\nsacredness of the person, the sense of obligation, and the sense of\nlove. We need to see and feel exactly these shortcomings, if we are\nnot to abuse the analogy. There is no social consciousness that will\nhold water that does not rest on what Phillips Brooks called \"a\nhealthy and ineradicable individualism,\" in the sense of the\nrecognition of the fully personal. We are spirits, not organisms, and\nsociety is a society of persons, not an organism, in a strict sense.\nWhy should we wish to make society less significant than it is?\n\n[12] Cf. King, _Op. cit._, pp. 92 ff., 179.\n\n[13] _Introduction to Philosophy_, p. 373.\n\n[14] _The Microcosmus_, Vol. I, p. 262.\n\n[15] Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 649 ff.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n_THE NECESSITY OF THE FACTS, OF WHICH THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE\nREFLECTION, IF IDEAL INTERESTS ARE TO BE SUPREME_\n\n\nI. THE QUESTION\n\nWith this positive and negative definition of the social\nconsciousness in our minds, a third question immediately suggests\nitself to one who wishes to go to the bottom of our theme. Why must\nthe facts, of which the social consciousness is the reflection, be as\nthey are if ideal interests are to be supreme? What has a theodicy to\nsay as to these facts? Why, that is, from the point of view of the\nideal--of religion and theology--why are we constituted so alike? so\nthat we must influence one another? so that the results of our actions\nnecessarily go over into the lives of others? so that the innocent\nsuffer with the guilty and the guilty profit with the righteous? so\nthat we must recognize everywhere the claim of others? so that we must\nrespect their personality? and so that we must love them?\n\n\nII. OTHERWISE NO MORAL WORLD AT ALL\n\nThe answer to all these world-old questions may perhaps be contained\nin the single statement, that otherwise we should have no moral world\nat all. There would be no thinkable moral universe, but rather as many\nworlds as there are individuals, having no more to do with one another\nthan the chemical reactions going on in a set of test-tubes.\n\n1. _The Prerequisites of a Moral World._ For our human thinking,\nassuredly, there are certain prerequisites, that the world may be at\nall a sphere for moral training and action. What are these\nprerequisites for a moral world? There must be, in the first place, a\n_sphere of universal law_, to count on, within which all actions take\nplace. In a lawless world, action could hardly take on any\nsignificance--least of all ethical significance. That freedom itself\nshould mean anything in outward expression, there must be the\npossibility of intelligent use of means toward the ends chosen.\n\nThere must be, in the second place, some _real ethical freedom_, some\npower of moral initiative. We need not quarrel about the terms used;\nbut, as Paulsen intimates, no serious ethical writer ever doubted that\nmen have at least some power to shape their own characters.[16]\nWithout that assumption, we have a whole world of ideas and\nideals--many of them the realest facts in the world to us--that have\nno legitimate excuse for being, that are simple insanities of the most\ninexplicable sort. The very meaning of the personality, indeed, which\nthe social consciousness must demand for men, is some real existence\nfor self, that is, some real self-consciousness and moral initiative.\n\nAnd freedom is not enough; there must be also _some power of\naccomplishment_. To ascribe mere volition to man seems, it has been\njustly said, sophistical. Results are needed to reveal the character\nof our acts, even to ourselves--to make that character real. Lotze's\ncharge that the world is imperfect because it might have been so made\nthat only good designs could be carried out, or so that the results of\nevil volitions would be at once corrected,[17] is itself similarly\nsophistical. Such a world, in which the outward results of action\nnever appear, would be but a play-world after all--only a nursery of\nbabes not yet capable of character. It could be no fit world for moral\ntraining.\n\nAnd still more, not less, must this law of the necessary results of\nactions hold in our relations to other persons. There can be, least of\nall, a moral universe where we are not _members one of another_.\nCharacter, in any form we can conceive it, could not then exist. Our\nbest, as well as our worst, possibilities are involved in these\nnecessary mutual relations. Moral character has meaning only in\npersonal relations. The results, therefore, which follow upon action,\nif the character of our deed is to have reality for us, must be\nchiefly personal. The realm of character has fearful possibilities.\nThis _is_ no play-world. We can cause and be caused suffering, and our\nsin necessarily carries the suffering, if not the sin, of others with\nit.\n\n2. _The Ideal World Requires, thus, the Facts of the Social\nConsciousness._--All this could be changed in any vital way only by\nshutting up every soul absolutely to itself, and with that result life\nhas simply ceased.\n\nFor we cannot really conceive a person as having any reason for being\nwithout such relations. He would be constantly baffled at every point,\nfor he is made for persons and personal relations. Love, too, the\nhighest source of both character and happiness, requires everywhere\npersonal relations. Religion itself, as a sharing of the life of God,\nwould be impossible without some relation to others; for God, at\nleast, could not be separated from the life of all. That is, persons,\nlove, religion, in such a world, have gone.\n\nThis, then, simply means that the ideal world ceases to be, with the\ndenial of the facts that the social consciousness reflects. We must be\nfull persons, social beings in the entire meaning demanded by the\nsocial consciousness--hard as the consequences involved often are--if\nideal interests are to be supreme. Indeed, the very moral judgment,\nthat incessantly prompts the problem of evil for every one of us, is\nrequired, for its own existence, to assume the validity of the\nrelations about which it questions. For it complains, for the most\npart, of those facts that follow inevitably from the necessary mutual\ninfluence of men; but the chief sources of the joy it requires, that\nit may justify the world, lie in these same mutual relations. It\nassumes, thus, in its claims on the world, the validity and worth of\nthe very relations of which it complains in its criticism of the\nworld. Or, slightly to vary the statement, the major premise, even of\npessimism, is that a really justifiable world must have worth in the\njoy it yields in personal life, impossible out of the personal\nrelations of a real moral universe. And there can be no moral universe\nwithout the facts reflected in the social consciousness. The ideal\nworld requires, then, the facts of the social consciousness.\n\n[16] _System of Ethics_, pp. 467 ff.\n\n[17] _Philosophy of Religion_, p. 125.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n_THE ULTIMATE EXPLANATION AND GROUND OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS_\n\n\nThe most important and fundamental inquiry as to the possible help\nof theology to the social consciousness still remains: What is the\nultimate explanation and ground of the social consciousness? This\nquestion includes two: (1) How can it be metaphysically that we do\ninfluence one another? (2) What is required for the final positive\njustification of the social consciousness as ethical? Theology's\nanswer to both questions is found in the being and character of God,\nthe creative and moral source of all.\n\n\nI. HOW CAN IT BE, METAPHYSICALLY, THAT WE DO INFLUENCE ONE ANOTHER?\n\nFirst, then, how can it be that we do influence one another? What is\nthe final explanation of the constant fact of our reciprocal action?\nFor in our final thinking we may not ignore this question.\n\n1. _Not Due to the Physical Fact of Race-Connection._--It may be worth\nwhile saying, first, that the physical fact of race-connection, if\nthat could be proved, would be no sufficient explanation. The race\nmay, or may not, be dependent upon a single pair, but in any case this\nis not the essential connection. The race is one by virtue of its\nessential likeness, however that comes about. Men might have sprung\nout of the ground in absolute individual independence of one another,\nand yet if there were such actual like-mindedness as now exists, the\nrace would be as truly one as it now is, and as capable of reciprocal\naction, and its members under the same obligation to one another. No\nideal interest is at stake, then, in the question of the actual\nphysical unity of the race as descended from one pair.\n\nOne may say, of course, that the physical unity of the race would\nnaturally result, according to the laws apparently prevailing in the\nanimal world, in likeness. And this may, therefore, seem to him the\nmost natural proximate explanation. But, even so, it is well to know\nthat our entire _moral_ interest is in the essential likeness and\nmutual influence of men, however brought about, and not in the\nphysical unity of men. Theology has no occasion to continue its\nearlier excessive and quite fundamental emphasis upon this physical\nunity. Moreover, such an explanation is necessarily but proximate.\nBack of it lies the deeper question, Why just these laws, and modes of\nprocedure?\n\n2. _We are not to Over-Emphasize the Principle of Heredity._--Nor can\ntheology, from any point of view, afford to over-emphasize the\nprinciple of heredity if it wishes to keep human initiative at all. It\nis a dangerous alliance which the old-school theology with its racial\nsin in Adam has been so ready to make with the principle of heredity.\nThat principle, as they wish to use it, proves quite too much; and\ncareful thinkers, really awake to ideal interests, may well rejoice in\nthe comparative relief which science itself, through the probably\nsomewhat exaggerated protest of the Weismann or Neo-Darwinian school,\nseems likely to afford from the incubus of a grossly exaggerated\nheredity. The main interest for the ideal view lies right here. We can\nsee why this law of the \"inheritance of acquired characteristics,\" in\nProfessor James' language, \"_should not_ be verified in the human\nrace, and why, therefore, in looking for evidence on the subject, we\nshould confine ourselves exclusively to lower animals. In them fixed\nhabit is the essential and characteristic law of nervous action. The\nbrain grows to the exact modes in which it has been exercised, and the\ninheritance of these modes--then called instincts--would have in it\nnothing surprising. But in man the negation of all fixed modes is the\nessential characteristic. He owes his whole pre\u00ebminence as a reasoner,\nhis whole human quality of intellect, we may say, to the facility with\nwhich a given mode of thought in him may suddenly be broken up into\nelements, which re-combine anew. Only at the price of inheriting no\nsettled instinctive tendencies is he able to settle every novel case\nby the fresh discovery by his reason of novel principles. He is, _par\nexcellence_, the educable animal.\"[18]\n\nTo over-emphasize the principle of heredity, then, is to strike at one\nof the most fundamental distinctive human qualities, and so to\nendanger every ideal interest. The growing like-mindedness of men and\ntheir mutual influence are not forthwith to be ascribed to an\nomnipotent principle of heredity.\n\n3. _Not Due to a Mystical Solidarity._--Nor is the mutual influence of\nmen to be explained by any mystical solidarity of the race considered\nas a _finite_ whole. It is a simple and reasonable scientific demand,\nthat we should not assume a mysterious, indefinable and incalculable\ncause, where known and intelligible causes suffice to explain the\nphenomena in question. Do we need, or can we intelligently use, a\nmystical solidarity? The only solidarity of the race which we seem\nreally to need, or with which we seem able intelligently to deal, is\nthe actual like-mindedness and the actual personal relations\nthemselves--the reciprocal action of spirits--the only kind of\nreciprocal action which we can finally fully conceive. Any other\nfinite solidarity than this, though it has often figured in theology,\nseems to me only a name without significance. In any case, we need to\ninsist in theology, much more than we have, upon that unity of the\nrace which is due to the actual likeness of men and their actual\nmutual personal influence. Such a unity we know and can understand,\nand it is of the highest ethical and spiritual importance. But to make\nmuch of the physical unity is to ground the spiritual in the physical;\nand, on the other hand, to take refuge in a mystical solidarity--and\nthis is often felt to be a rather deep procedure--for whatever\ntheological purpose, is to hide in the fog of the obscure and\nunintelligible.\n\n4. _Grounded in the Immanence of God._--But back of all finite\nphenomena, we may still ask for an ultimate explanation of the\npossibility of any reciprocal action even between spirits. And it is,\nperhaps, this ultimate explanation after which the idea of a mystical\nsolidarity of the race is blindly groping. Unless one chooses to\naccept reciprocal action as a necessarily given fact in any universe\n(and this position, I think with F. C. S. Schiller, may be reasonably\ndefended),[19] he must somewhere in his thinking ask for its final\nexplanation. And most of those, who try to think things through, feel\nthis pressure. And metaphysics, we do well to remember with Professor\nJames, \"means only an unusually obstinate attempt to think clearly and\nconsistently.\"[20] As Lotze puts it: \"How a cause begins to produce\nits _immediate_ effect, how a condition is the foundation of its\ndirect result, it will never be possible to say; yet that cause and\neffect _do_ thus act must be reckoned among those simple facts that\ncompose the reality which is the object of all our investigation. But\nthere is an intolerable contradiction in the assumption that, though\ntwo beings may be wholly independent the one of the other, yet that\nwhich takes place in one can be a cause of change in the other; things\nthat do not affect each other at all, cannot at the same time affect\neach other in such a manner that the one is guided by the other.\"[21]\n\nThis question is fairly thrust upon us by the facts of the social\nconsciousness. How can it be that we do so influence one another? how\nis our reciprocal action metaphysically possible? The answer of\ntheistic philosophy to this question is found in the being of God.\n\nUpon the metaphysical side, theistic philosophy affirms that we can\nascribe independent existence in the highest sense only to God. All\nelse is absolutely dependent for its existence and maintenance upon\nhim. The kind of reality that we demand for man is not that he be\n_outside_ of God, independent of him; this would not make man more,\nbut less. Every thorough-going theistic view must have this at least\nin common with pantheism, that it recognizes everywhere a real\nimmanence of God. We are, because God wills in us. This metaphysical\nrelation of the finite to the infinite, to be sure, is not to be\nconceived spatially or materially; nor, least of all, is it be so\nconceived as to deny a real self-consciousness and a real moral\ninitiative to the finite spirit; but it does involve the absolute\ndependence of all the finite upon the will of God. As to our _being_,\nwe root solely in God. And the unity and consistency of the being of\nGod are the actual ground of our possible reciprocal action. Only so\nis that contradiction of which Lotze spoke avoided. We are not\nindependent of one another, because we are all alike dependent for our\nvery being upon God. And we are thus members one of another,\nultimately, only through him.\n\nThe further fact, that we are never fully able to trace causal\nconnections anywhere; that even in the clearest case no possible\nanalysis of one stage in the process enables us to prophesy,\nindependently of experience, the next stage, also compels us to admit\nthat the full cause is not really present in any of the finite\nmanifestations we can follow; that we have always to take account of\nthe \"hidden efficacy of the Infinite everywhere at work,\" and so must\nrecognize once again the indubitable immanence of God, the absolute\ndependence of the finite upon his will, and our reciprocal action as\npossible only through him.[22]\n\nOr, to put the same thing a little differently, any adequate theory of\ncausality seems to lead us up inevitably to purpose in God. As\nProfessor Bowne states it:[23] \"The fundamental antithesis of purpose\nand causation is incorrect. The true antithesis is that of mechanical\nand volitional causality.\" And he intimates the probability that all\ncausality, even in the physical world, is ultimately volitional. \"It\nbecomes a question,\" he says, \"whether true causality can be found in\nthe phenomenal at all, and not rather in a power beyond the phenomenal\nwhich incessantly posits and continues that order according to rule.\"\nThe unity and consistency of the immanent will of God, then, are the\nultimate metaphysical ground of all reciprocal action. The mutual\ninfluence, that is, even of spirits, finds its final full explanation\nonly in God.\n\nThe social consciousness, therefore, so far as it is an expression of\nthe possibility and inevitableness of our mutual influence, is a\nreflection of the immanence of the one God in the unity and\nconsistency of his life.\n\nBut this, after all, is not the most important element of the social\nconsciousness. So far as it is _ethical_ at all, it can have no final\nexplanation in the metaphysical, considered as mere matter of fact. We\nare driven, therefore, to ask the second question involved in the\nsubject of the chapter.\n\n\nII. WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR THE FINAL POSITIVE JUSTIFICATION OF THE\nSOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AS ETHICAL?\n\n1. _Must be Grounded in the Supporting Will of God._--It is not enough\nthat we should be able to think of the unity of One Life pervading\nall, or even of One Will upholding all. If the social consciousness,\nas distinctly ethical, is to have any final justification, it must be\nable to believe that it is in league with the eternal and universal\nforces; that the fundamental trend of the universe is its own trend;\nin other words, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical\npurpose conceivable only in a Person; that the ideals and purposes of\nfinite beings expressed in the social consciousness are in line with\nGod's own; that the loving holy purpose of the Infinite Will quickens\nand sustains and surrounds our purposes.\n\nLet us distinctly face the fact that, unless the social consciousness\ncan be so grounded in the very foundation of the universe, it must\nremain an illogical and unjustifiable fragment in the world, without\nreal excuse for being. That is, if the social consciousness is not to\nbe an illusion, it must be, as Professor Nash contends, cosmical, and\nnot merely individual, and ethics must root in religion. This is the\nvery heart of his stimulating book, _Ethics and Revelation_,\nexpressed, for example, in such sentences as these: \"Nothing save a\nsense of deep and intimate connection with the solid core of things,\nnothing save a settled and fervid conviction that the universe is on\nthe side of the will in its struggle for that whole-hearted devotion\nfor the welfare of the race, without which morality is an affair of\nshreds and patches, can give to the will the force and edge suitable\nto the difficult work it has to do. But this sense of kinship with\nwhat is deepest and most abiding in the universe--what else is meant\nby pure religion.\" And again: \"We, as founders and builders of the\ntrue society, find ourselves shut up to an impassioned faith in the\nsincerity of the universe and the integrity of the fundamental being.\nOur religion is a deep and wide synthesis of feeling, whereby that\npersonal will in us, which grounds society, comes into solemn league\nand covenant with the fundamental being. Here is the focus-point of\nthe prophetic revelation. At this point, the deep in God answers to\nthe deep in Man.... All that He is He puts in pledge for the\nperfecting of the society He has founded.\"[24]\n\nPaulsen expresses only the same fundamental conviction, from the point\nof view of the philosopher, and, at the same time, the heart of his\nown solution of the relation between knowledge and faith, when he\nsays: \"There is one item, at least, in which every man goes beyond\nmere knowledge, beyond the registration of facts. That is his own life\nand his future. His life has a meaning for him, and he directs it\ntoward something which does not yet exist, but which will exist by\nvirtue of his will. Thus a faith springs up by the side of his\nknowledge. He believes in the realization of this, his life's aim, if\nhe is at all in earnest about it. Since, however, his aim is not an\nisolated one, but is included in the historical life of a people, and\nfinally in that of humanity, he believes also in the future of his\npeople, in the victorious future of truth and righteousness and\ngoodness in humanity. Whoever devotes his life to a cause believes in\nthat cause, and this belief, be his creed what it may, has always\nsomething of the form of a religion. Hence faith infers that an inner\nconnection exists between the real and the valuable within the domain\nof history, and believes that in history something like an immanent\nprinciple of reason or justice favors the right and the good, and\nleads it to victory over all resisting forces.\" And Paulsen holds that\nthis implicit faith characterizes necessarily every philosophical\ntheory. \"What the philosopher himself accepts as the highest good and\nfinal goal he projects into the world as its good and goal, and then\nbelieves that subsequent reflections also reveal it to him in the\nworld.\"[25]\n\nWe must be able, then, to believe that the best we know--our highest\nideals--are at home in the world, or give up all faith in the honesty\nof the world, and all hope of philosophy, to say nothing of religion.\nUltimately, now, this means that nothing short of full Christian\nconviction is needed to support the social consciousness. We need to\nbe able to believe that the spirit of the life and death of Christ is\nat the very heart of the world. Nothing less will suffice. And this is\nexactly the support which the Christian revelation offers to the\nsocial consciousness.\n\n2. _God's Sharing in Our Life._--But if the social consciousness is\nonly a true reflection of God's own desire and purpose, then in a\nsense far deeper than the merely metaphysical, our life is the very\nlife of God. He shares in it. And no man can really see what that\nmeans, and not find a new light falling on all the world, and himself\ncarried on to take up a new confession of faith in the solemn words of\nanother: \"For the agony of the world's struggle is the very life of\nGod. Were he mere spectator, perhaps, he too would call life cruel.\nBut in the unity of our lives with his, our joy is his joy, our pain\nis his.\" And from the vision of this self-giving life of God we turn\nback to our own place of service, saying with Matheson: \"If Thou art\nlove then Thy best gift must be sacrifice; in that light let me search\nThy world.\"[26]\n\nWe probably cannot better express this unity of our highest ethical\nlife with the life of God than by renewing our old faith that we are\nchildren of a common Father, who have come, under God's own\nleading--so far as a social consciousness is ours--voluntarily to\nshare in God's loving purpose in the creation and redemption of men.\nWe do not work alone; nay, we are co-workers with God.\n\n3. _The Consequent Transfiguration of the Social Consciousness._--And\nas soon as we have thus really and deeply come into the meaning of\nChrist's thought of God as Father, and into his revelation in his life\nand death as to what the spirit of that Fatherhood is, we turn back to\nthe elements of our social consciousness to find them all\ntransfigured.\n\nOur _likeness_ is the likeness of common children of God reflecting\nthe image of the one Father, capable of character and of indefinite\nprogress into the highest.\n\nOur _mutual influence_ roots in a real Fatherhood, both in source of\nbeing and in the one purpose of love, alike creating and redemptively\nworking for all.\n\nOur _sense of the value and sacredness of the person_ now for the\nfirst time gets its full justification. Men are not only creatures\ncapable of joying and suffering, but children of God with a\npreciousness to be interpreted only in the light of Christ, and with\nthe \"power of the endless life\" upon them. Concerning the value of the\nperson, it is worth stopping just here, to notice that it is\npeculiarly true of the social consciousness, that it is not free to\nignore such considerations upon immortality as those which weighed\nmost with John Stuart Mill and Sully. Of the hope of immortality, Mill\nsays: \"The beneficial influence of such a hope is far from trifling.\nIt makes life and human nature a far greater thing to the feelings,\nand gives greater strength as well as greater solemnity to all the\nsentiments which are awakened in us by our fellow-creatures, and by\nmankind at large.\" And Sully adds: \"I would only say that if men are\nto abandon all hope of a future life, the loss, in point of cheering\nand sustaining influence, will be a vast one, and one not to be made\ngood, so far as I can see, by any new idea of services to collective\nhumanity.\"[27]\n\nOur _sense of obligation_ deepens with all this deepening of the value\nof men, and our conscience becomes only a true response to God's own\nlife and character--in no mere figurative sense the voice of God in\nus.\n\nAnd our _love_ becomes simply entering a little way into God's own\nlove, a sharing more and more in his life.\n\nAnd when one has once seen the social consciousness so transfigured in\nthe light of Christ's revelation, he must believe that then, for the\nfirst time, he has seen the social consciousness at its highest, and\nthat it is impossible for him to go back to the lower ideal. If the\nsocial consciousness is not an illusion, Christ's thought of God and\nof the life with God ought to be true; and if the world is an honest\nworld, it is true. It is not only true that Christ has a social\nteaching, but that the social consciousness absolutely requires\nChrist's teaching for its own final justification. The Christian truth\n_is_ so great that it alone can give the social consciousness its\nfullest meaning, alone can enable it to understand itself, and alone\ncan give it adequate motive and power; for, in Keim's words, \"to-day,\nto-morrow, and forever we can know nothing better than that God is our\nFather, and that the Father is the rest of our souls.\"[28]\n\n[18] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 367, 368.\n\n[19] _The Philosophical Review_, May, 1896, p. 228.\n\n[20] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 461.\n\n[21] _Microcosmus_, Vol. II, p. 599.\n\n[22] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 54, 84, 102.\n\n[23] _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp. 91, 111.\n\n[24] _Ethics and Revelation_, pp. 50, 243, 244.\n\n[25] _Introduction to Philosophy_, pp. 8, 9, 313.\n\n[26] _Searchings in the Silence_, p. 46.\n\n[27] Quoted by Orr, _The Christian View of God and the World_, pp.\n160, 72.\n\n[28] Quoted by Bruce, _The Kingdom of God_, p. 157.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE CONCEPTION OF\nRELIGION\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nFrom the question of the support which Christian faith and doctrine\ngive to the social consciousness, we turn now to the second part of\nour inquiry: How does this growing social consciousness, not by any\nmeans always consciously religious, naturally react upon and affect\nour conceptions of religion and of theological doctrines?\n\nIn this inquiry, we cannot always be sure historically of the exact\nconnection, and, for our present purpose, this is not of prime\nimportance. But we can see, for example, in this second division of\nour theme, the relations of religion and the social consciousness, and\nhow religion must be conceived if the social consciousness is fully\nwarranted; and this is the main question.\n\nIf the definition of theology which has been suggested be adopted--the\nthoughtful and unified expression of what religion means to us--then\nit is obvious that any change in conception or emphasis in religion\nwill necessarily affect theological statement. Our inquiry as to the\ninfluence of the social consciousness, therefore, naturally begins\nwith religion.\n\nThe discussions of this division, moreover, will really include all\nthat part of theological doctrine which has to do with the growth into\nthe life with God.\n\nThe natural influence of the social consciousness upon the conception\nof religion may be, perhaps, summed up in four points, which form the\nsubjects of the four succeeding chapters: (1) The social consciousness\ntends to draw religion away from the falsely mystical; (2) it tends to\nemphasize the personal relation in religion, and so keeps the truly\nmystical; (3) it tends to emphasize the ethical in religion; (4) it\ntends to emphasize the concretely historically Christian in religion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n_THE OPPOSITION OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL_\n\n\nI. WHAT IS THE FALSELY MYSTICAL?\n\nTwo very clear answers made from different points of view deserve\nattention.\n\n1. _Nash's Definition._--In trying to set forth the \"main mood and\nmotives of religious speculation\" in the early Christian centuries,\nProfessor Nash takes, as perhaps the two strongest influences in\ndetermining the type of man to whom Christian apologetics had then to\nappeal, Philo and Plotinus, and says: \"By what road shall the mind\nenter into a deep and intimate knowledge of God? That is the decisive\nquestion. Plotinus the Gentile and Philo the Jew are at one in their\nanswer. The reason must rise above reasoning. It must pass into a\nstate that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy before it can truly\nknow God. Philo gave up for the sake of his theory, the position of\nthe prophets. Plotinus, for the same theory, forsook the position of\nPlato and Aristotle. The prophets conceived the inmost essence of\nthings, the being and will of God, as a creative and redemptive force\nthat guided and revealed itself through the career of a great national\ncommunity. Plato and Aristotle conceived the essence of life as a\nlabor of reason; and, for them, the labors of reason found their\nsufficient refreshment and inspiration in those moments of clear\nsynthesis which are the reward of patient analysis. Revelation came to\nthe prophet through his experience of history. To the philosopher it\ncame through hard and steady thinking. But Philo and Plotinus together\ndeclared these roads to be no thoroughfares. The Greek and the Jew met\non the common ground of a mysticism that sacrificed the needs of sober\nreason and the needs of the nation to the necessities of the\nmonk.\"[29] Mysticism is here conceived as unethical, unhistorical, and\nunrational.\n\n2. _Herrmann's Definition._--Herrmann's definition of mysticism is the\nsecond one to which attention is directed. He says: \"When the\ninfluence of God upon the soul is sought and found solely in an inward\nexperience of the individual; when certain excitements of the emotions\nare taken, with no further question, as evidence that the soul is\npossessed by God; when, at the same time, nothing external to the soul\nis consciously and clearly perceived and firmly grasped; when no\nthoughts that elevate the spiritual life are aroused by the positive\ncontents of an idea that rules the soul--then that is the piety of\nmysticism. He who seeks in this wise that for the sake of which he is\nready to abandon all beside, has stepped beyond the pale of Christian\npiety. He leaves Christ and Christ's Kingdom altogether behind him\nwhen he enters that sphere of experience which seems to him to be the\nhighest.\"[30] The marks of mysticism for Herrmann, then, are: that it\nis purely subjective; that it is merely emotional and unethical; and\nhence that it has no clear object, and is abstract, unrational,\nunhistorical, and so unchristian.\n\n\nII. THE OBJECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE FALSELY MYSTICAL\n\nAgainst this neo-platonic, falsely mystical conception of religion,\nthe social consciousness seems to be clearly arrayed, and, so far as\nthe social consciousness influences religion, it will certainly tend\nto draw it away from this falsely mystical idea.\n\n1. _Unethical._--For, in the first place, this neo-platonic conception\nof religion has nothing distinctly ethical in it. The ethical is\nmanifestly not made the test of true religious experience, as it is in\nthe New Testament. The social consciousness, on the other hand, is\npredominantly and emphatically ethical, and can have nothing to do\nwith a religion in which ethics is either omitted or is wholly\nsubordinate. At this point, therefore, the pressure of the social\nconsciousness is strongly against a neo-platonic mysticism.\n\n2. _Does not Give a Real Personal God._--In the second place, the\nsocial consciousness cannot get along with the falsely mystical,\nbecause it does not give a real personal God. Let us be clear upon\nthis point. Is not Herrmann right when he says that all that can be\nsaid of the God of this mysticism is \"that he is not the world? Now\nthat is precisely all that mysticism has ever been able to say of God\nas it conceives him. Plainly, the world and the conception of it are\nall that moves the soul while it thinks thus of God. Only\ndisappointment can ensue to the soul whose yearning for God in such\ncase keeps on insisting that God must be something utterly different\nfrom the world. If such a soul will reflect awhile on the nature of\nthe God thus reached, the fact must inevitably come to the surface\nthat its whole consciousness is occupied with the world now as it was\nbefore, for evidently it has grasped no positive ideas--nothing but\nnegative ideas--about anything else. Mysticism frequently passes into\npantheism for this very reason, even in men of the highest religious\nenergy; they refuse to be satisfied with the mere longing after God,\nor to remain on the way to him, but determine to reach the goal\nitself, and rest with God himself.\"[31]\n\nNow we have already seen that the social consciousness can find\nadequate support and power and motive only in faith that its purpose\nis God's purpose, that the deepest thing in the universe is an ethical\npurpose, conceivable only in a personal God; and, therefore, neither\nan empty negation nor pantheism can ever satisfy it.\n\n3. _Belittles the Personal in Man._--The false mysticism, moreover,\nbelittles the personal in man as well as in God; for it does not treat\nwith real reverence either the personality, the ethical freedom, the\nsense of obligation, or the reason of man. This whole thought of \"a\nstate that is half a swoon and half an ecstasy\" is a sort of swamping\nof clear self-consciousness and definite moral initiative, in which\nthe very reality of man's personality consists. It is a heathen, not a\nChristian, idea of inspiration which demands the suppression of the\nhuman, whether in consciousness, in will, in reason, or by belittling\nthe sense of obligation to others. But mysticism has at least tended\ntoward failure in all these respects.\n\nAnd yet, from the time that Paul argued with the Corinthians against\ntheir immense overestimation of the gift of speaking with tongues,\nthis fascination of the merely mystical has been felt in Christianity.\n(1) The very mystery and unintelligibility of the experience, (2) its\necstatic emotion, (3) its sense of being controlled by a power beyond\none's self, and (4) its contrast with ordinary life--all these\nelements make the mystical experience seem to most all the more\ndivine, although in so judging they are applying a pagan, not a\nChristian, standard. So far as these experiences have value, it is\nprobably due to the strong and realistic sense which they give of\nbeing in the presence of an overpowering being. If thoroughly\npermeated and dominated with other elements, this sense is not without\nits value.\n\nBut it is interesting to notice that, although Paul does not deny the\nlegitimacy of the gift of speaking with tongues, he nevertheless\nabsolutely subordinates it, and insists that the most ecstatic\nreligious emotions are completely worthless without love. Evidently\nthe considerations which weighed most with the Corinthians in valuing\nthe gift of unintelligible ecstatic utterance weighed little with\nPaul; and one can see how Paul implicitly argues against each of those\nconsiderations: (1) God is not an unknown, mystic force, but the\ndefinite, concrete God of character, shown in Christ. (2) He speaks to\nreason and will as well as to feeling, and he best speaks to feeling\nwhen he speaks to the whole man. True religious emotion must have a\nrational basis and must move to duty. (3) Religion, he would urge, is\na self-controlled and voluntary surrender to a personal God of\ncharacter, not a passive being swept away by an unknown emotion. (4)\nGod has most to give, be assured, he would have added, in the _common_\nways of life.\n\nNow, in every one of these protests, the social consciousness\ninstinctively joins. It cannot rest in a conception of religion that\nbelittles the personal in God or man; for it is itself an emphatic\ninsistence upon the fully personal. And it can, least of all, get on\nwith the mystical ignoring of the rational and the ethical, for it\nholds that the social evolution moves steadily on to a rational\nlike-mindedness, and to a definitely ethical civilization. Giddings\nputs the sociological conclusion in a sentence: \"It is the rational,\nethical consciousness that maintains social cohesion in a progressive\ndemocracy.\"[32] Now that which is clearly recognized as the goal in\nthe relations of man to man will not be set aside as unwarranted or\nsubordinate in the relations of man to God. And we may depend upon it.\n\n4. _Leaves the Historically, Concretely Christian._--Once more, the\nsocial consciousness cannot approve of the mystical conception of\nreligion in its ignoring, in its highest state, the historically and\nconcretely Christian. With mysticism's subjective, emotional, and\nabstract conception of the highest communion with God, and of the way\nthereto, the historical and concrete at best can be to it only\nsubordinate means, more or less mysteriously connected with the\nattainment of the goal, and left behind when once the goal is reached.\n\nThe social consciousness, on the other hand, requires historical\njustification, and definitely builds on the facts of the historical\nsocial evolution.\n\nIn the case of the prophets and psalmists, for example, who alone in\nthe ancient world most fully anticipated the modern social feeling,\nthe social consciousness plainly arose in the face of the concrete\nhistorical life of a people. No result of modern Old Testament\ncriticism is more certain. So that, speaking of \"the religious aspects\nof the social struggle in Israel,\" McCurdy can use this strong\nlanguage: \"It is not too much to say that this conflict, intense,\nuninterrupted, and prolonged, is the very heart of the religion of the\nOld Testament, its most regenerative and propulsive movement. To the\npersonal life of the soul, the only basis of a potential, world-moving\nreligion, it gave energy and depth, assurance and hopefulness, repose\nand self-control, with an outlook clear and eternal.\"[33] But it was\nthis standpoint of the prophets that the falsely mystical conception\nof religion abandoned. We may well take to heart, in our estimate of\nmysticism, the gradual but steady elimination of ecstasy in the\ndevelopment of Israel, and its practically total absence in those we\ncount in the highest sense prophets.[34]\n\nThe social consciousness, moreover, has almost entirely to do with\nmen, and hence naturally must lay stress on human history, rather than\non nature, as a source of religious ideas. Indeed, it will have no\ndoubt that what nature is made to mean religiously will be chiefly\ndetermined by the prevalent social ideals. It can, therefore, least of\nall ignore the historical in Christianity.\n\nThe social consciousness recognizes increasingly, too, with the\nclearing of its own ideals and with the deepening study of the\nteaching of Jesus, that it really is only demanding, in the concrete,\nand in detailed application to particular problems, and to all of\nthem, the spirit shown in its fullness only in Christ, as Professor\nPeabody's eminently sane treatment of the social teaching of Jesus\nseems to me fairly to have proven. The social consciousness,\ntherefore, cannot help becoming more and more consciously and\nemphatically Christian.\n\nIn a single sentence, because of the steps of its own long evolution,\nthe social consciousness instinctively distrusts the highly emotional,\nunless it is manifestly under equally strong rational control, and\nunless it has equal ethical insight and power, and is historically\njustified. It tends, therefore, necessarily to draw away from the\nfalsely mystical in religion, which is lacking in all these respects.\n\nAnd the same reasons, which array the social consciousness against the\nfalsely mystical in religion, lead it into natural sympathy with a\npositive emphasis upon the personal, the ethical, and the historically\nconcretely Christian in religion.\n\n[29] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 33.\n\n[30] Herrmann, _The Communion of the Christian with God_, pp. 19, 20.\n\n[31] Herrmann, _Op. cit._, p. 27.\n\n[32] Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 321; cf. also pp. 155 ff,\n302, 320, 327.\n\n[33] McCurdy, _History, Prophecy, and the Monuments_, Vol. II, p. 223;\ncf. pp. 214, ff.\n\n[34] G. A. Smith, _The Book of the Twelve Prophets_, Vol. I, pp. 30,\n84, 89; Cornill, _The Prophets of Israel_, pp. 41, 46; _The Expository\nTimes_, Jan., Feb., 1902, article, _Prophetic Ecstasy_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE PERSONAL RELATION\nIN RELIGION, AND SO UPON THE TRULY MYSTICAL_\n\n\nI. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS TENDS POSITIVELY TO EMPHASIZE THE PERSONAL\nRELATION IN RELIGION\n\n1. _Emphasizes Everywhere the Personal._--The social consciousness\nsees man as pre\u00ebminently the social animal, made for personal\nrelations, irrevocably and essentially knit up with other persons. It\ndeepens everywhere our sense of persons and of personal relations. It\nmay be itself almost defined as the sense of the fully personal.\n\nReligion, then, if it is to be most real to men of the social\nconsciousness, must be personally conceived, that is, must be\ndistinctly seen to be a personal relation of man to God. And this\nconception, as the highest we can reach, is to be followed fearlessly\nto the end; only guarding it against wrong inferences from the simple\ntransference to God of finite conditions, and recognizing exactly in\nwhat respects the personal relation to God is unique.[35]\n\nThe social consciousness, moreover, as we have seen, must have a\nconception of religion that can really justify the social\nconsciousness, and, therefore, must do justice to the fully personal\nin God and man; and this need also leads the social consciousness\nnaturally to the conception of religion as a personal relation.\n\n2. _Requires the Laws of a Deepening Friendship in Religion._--When\nthis conception is carried out, it is found that growth in the\nreligious life, in communion with God, follows the laws of a deepening\nfriendship.[36] These laws can, therefore, be known and studied and\nformulated; and religion, at the same time, ceases to be\nunintelligible and ceases to be isolated--cut off from the rest of\nlife, and becomes rather that one great fundamental relation which\ngives being and meaning and value to all the rest. In absolute\nharmony, then, with the genesis of the social consciousness, religion,\nin this conception, is bound up with the whole of life; and we catch a\nglimpse of the real and final unity of life in true love, the relation\nto God and the relation to man each helping everywhere the other. If\nreligion is truly a personal relation, and its laws are those of a\ndeepening friendship, then every human relation, heartily and truly\nfulfilled, becomes a new outlook on God, a revelation of new\npossibilities in the religious life. And, on the other hand, in that\nmutual self-revelation and answering trust upon which every growing\npersonal relation is built, every fresh revelation of God is an\nenlarging of our ideal for our relations to others. Even biblical\nliterature, perhaps, furnishes no more perfect example of the\ninterplay of the human and divine relations than Hosea's account of\nhis own providential leading through the human relation into the\ndivine, and back again from the divine to a still better human.\n\n3. _Requires the Ideal Conditions of the Richest Life in\nReligion._--And if religion is to be justified in its supreme claims\nby the social consciousness, it must be felt to offer, besides, the\nideal conditions of the richest life. As a personal relation to God,\nreligion need not shrink from this test. Our great needs are character\nand happiness. Psychology seems to me to point to two great means and\nto two accompanying conditions of both character and happiness. The\nmeans are association and work; the corresponding conditions are\nreverence for personality, and objectivity--the mood of both love and\nwork. The great essentials, therefore, to the richest life are (1)\nassociation in which personality is respected, and (2) work in which\none can lose himself. Now, when would these conditions become ideal?\nOn the one hand, as to association, when the association is with him\nwho is of the highest character and of the infinitely richest life,\nand relation to whom is fundamental to every other personal relation;\nwhen, secondly, God is made concrete and real to us in an adequate\npersonal revelation of his character, and of his love toward us; and\nwhen, third, the association is individualized for each one, who\nthrows himself open to God, in God's spiritual presence in us,\nconstantly and intimately, and yet _unobtrusively_, co\u00f6perating with\nus. And, on the other hand, as to work, when the work is God-given\nwork, to which one is set apart, and in which he may lose himself with\njoy. These are the ideal conditions of the richest life. Just these\nideal conditions Jesus declared actualities. For the fulfilment of\njust these, in the case of his disciples, he prayed in his double\npetition,--\"Keep them,\" \"Sanctify them,\" \"Keep them in thy name,\" that\nis, through the divine association. \"Sanctify them\"--set them apart\nunto their God-given work. \"As thou hast sent me into the world, even\nso have I also sent them into the world.\" Such a conception of\nreligion can fairly claim to meet, broadly and deeply, the most\nexacting demands of the social consciousness for emphasis upon the\npersonal relation in religion.\n\n\nII. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS THUS KEEPS THE TRULY MYSTICAL\n\nI have no predilection for the term mystical, and would gladly confine\nit to what I have termed the neo-platonic or falsely mystical, were it\nnot that, in spite of the dictionaries and the histories of philosophy\nand the histories of doctrine, the term is used in two quite different\nsenses. Many, it seems to me, are defending what they call the\nmystical in religion, who have no idea of defending what Herrmann and\nNash call mystical. And many, on the other hand, are defending and\nteaching the falsely mystical through an undefined fear that else they\nwill lose the truly mystical. Theology and religion both greatly need\na clear discrimination of terms here. Many are involved, in both\nliving and thinking, in a self-contradiction, which they feel but\ncannot state; and are urging with themselves and with others a means\nof religious life and a corresponding method of conception, which\nreally contradict their highest convictions in other lines of life and\nthought. Can we find our way out of this confusion?\n\nIf one studies carefully the historical representatives of mysticism,\nand especially such a strong type as Jacob B\u00f6hme, whom Erdmann calls\nthe \"culmination of mysticism,\" and still keeps his head, certain\ndangers in mysticism, it would seem, must become apparent. And it may\nbe worth while to attempt a brief, but definite, analysis of the\njustifiable and unjustifiable elements in these mystical movements.\n\n1. _The Justifiable and Unjustifiable Elements in Mysticism._--(1) The\nfirst danger in mysticism seems to me to be the tendency to make\nsimple emotion the supreme test of the religious state. Whether this\nemotion is thought of as ecstatic--such as some of the old mystics\ncalled \"being drunk with God,\" or, as quietistic--in which\nimperturbability, passionlessness, become the highest good--is\ncomparatively indifferent. The justifiable element here is the\ninsistence that religion is real and is life; for feeling is perhaps\nthe most powerful element in the sense of reality. So James says:\n\"Speaking generally, the more a conceived object excites us, the more\nreality it has.\"[37] The unjustifiable element is the perilous\nsubjection of the rational and ethical. Such a view must always lack\nany positive and adequate conception of our active life and vocation\nin the world.\n\n(2) A second closely connected danger in mysticism is the tendency\ntoward mere subjectivism. There is here a justifiable element in the\nemphasis on one's own personal conviction and faith; an unjustifiable\nelement in the tendency to underrate anything but the purely\nsubjective, to ignore all correcting influences from others, from the\nchurch, and from the Scriptures.\n\n(3) A third danger follows from this: the marked tendency to\nunderestimate the historical. The justifiable element here is, again,\nthe emphasis on personal conviction and faith; the unjustifiable\nelement is the tendency toward the greatest one-sidedness, and toward\nemptiness, especially of ethical content. Advising our young people\nsimply to \"listen to God,\" without the strongest insistence upon the\nhistorical revelation of God at the same time, is exposing them to the\ngreat danger of mistaking for an indubitable, divine revelation the\nveriest vagary that may chance in their empty-mindedness next to come\ninto their thought. With the reason in supposed abeyance, the door is\nthus thrown open to the grossest superstitions. Honest attempts to\ndeepen the religious life may thus become dangerous assaults upon true\nreligion.\n\n(4) A fourth danger in mysticism is so strong a tendency toward\nvagueness, that the common mind is not without warrant in identifying\nmysticism and mistiness. The justifiable element here is in the real\ndifficulty of expressing the full content of the entire religious\nexperience; the unjustifiable element is, once more, the slighting of\nthe historical, the ethical, and the rational, especially in talking\nmuch of the contradictions of reason, and of what is above reason.\nMysticism naturally lacks positive content.\n\n(5) Another danger--the tendency toward pantheism--comes in partly, as\nHerrmann has suggested, as a meeting of this lack of content, and\npartly as the logical outcome of such an insistence upon losing\noneself in God as amounts to a being swept out of one's self--a loss\nof clear and rational self-consciousness, which is next interpreted\nspeculatively as a real absorption in God, and is then made the goal.\nThis is the familiar road of Indian and neo-platonic mysticism, and\nits phenomena are real enough, but probably of only the slightest\nreligious significance. Tennyson tells somewhere of the immense sense\nof illumination that came to him once from simply repeating\nmonotonously his own name--\"Alfred Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson.\" This\nmay be as effective as looking at the end of one's nose and\nceaselessly reiterating \"Om,\" as does the Hindu ascetic. A still\nshorter and more certain method is through nitrous-oxide-gas\nintoxication, of which Professor James says: \"With me, as with every\nother person of whom I have heard, the key-note of the experience is\nthe tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical\nillumination. Truth lies open to the view in depth beneath depth of\nalmost blinding evidence. The mind sees all the logical relations of\nbeing with an apparent subtlety and instantaneity, to which its normal\nconsciousness offers no parallel; only as sobriety returns, the\nfeeling of insight fades, and one is left staring vacantly at a few\ndisjointed words and phrases as one stares at a cadaverous-looking\nsnow-peak from which the sunset glow has just fled, or at the black\ncinder left by an extinguished brand.\" \"The immense emotional sense of\nreconciliation,\" he felt to be the characteristic mood. \"It is\nimpossible to convey,\" he says, \"an idea of the torrential character\nof the identification of opposites as it streams through the mind in\nthis experience.\"[38]\n\nNow it is not safe to ignore such facts, when we are seriously trying\nto estimate the religious significance of intense emotional\nexperiences, the reality of which we need not at all question. The\nvital question is, not that of the reality of the experiences, but\nthat of the real cause of the experiences; and the only possible test\nof this is rational and ethical. But from this test, mysticism tends\nfrom the start to shut itself off, and so, assuming the experience to\nbe truly religious, ends often in virtual pantheism.\n\nThe justifiable element in this insistence upon absorption in God is\nthe necessary moral relation of complete surrender to God. The\nunjustifiable element is in belittling the personal in both God and\nman, and in making essentially religious an experience that has almost\nnothing of the rational and ethical in it, and that, on that very\naccount, fosters the irreverent familiarity with Christ so deplored by\nmore than one careful student of mysticism. A natural and common and\nmost dangerous accompaniment of such an intense emotional experience\nis the tendency afterward, to excuse sin in oneself. In the case of\nthe most conscientious, it is worth noting, such an emphasis upon\nintense experiences tends to lead them to distrust the reality of the\nnormal Christian experience if they have not had these intense\nemotions, or if they have had them, tends to bring them into despair\nwhen they find these marked experiences actually proving less powerful\nin effects upon life than they had expected.\n\n(6) The last danger in mysticism, to which reference will be made, is\nthe tendency to extravagant symbolism. This is closely connected with\n\"the immense emotional sense of reconciliation,\" and is much stronger\nby nature in some than in others. The born mystic finds his own\nsubjective views symbolized everywhere, and is in grave danger of\nbeing led into an ingenious, practically unconscious intellectual\ndishonesty. The justifiable element here is that sense of the unity\nand worth of things which is the most fundamental conviction of our\nminds. The unjustifiable element has been sufficiently indicated.\n\nThe justifiable elements in mysticism, then, may be said to include:\nthe insistence on the legitimate place of feeling in religion as a\nreal and vital experience; the emphasis on one's own conviction and\nfaith; the real difficulty of expressing the full meaning of the\nreligious experience; the demand for a complete ethical surrender to\nGod; and the faith in the real unity and worth of the world in God.\nNow if one tries to bring together these justifiable elements in\nmysticism, the truly mystical may all be summed up as simply a protest\nin favor of the whole man--the entire personality. It says that men\ncan experience and live and feel and do much more than they can\nlogically formulate, define, explain, or even fully express. Living is\nmore than thinking.\n\n2. _The Protest in Favor of the Whole Man._--The element to which\nmysticism has tried most to do justice is feeling, and so it has been\nliable to a new and dangerous one-sidedness. But the truly mystical\nmust be a protest alike against a narrow juiceless intellectualism,\nagainst a narrow moralistic rigorism, and against a blind and\nspineless sentimentalism. It is a protest particularly against making\nthe mathematico-mechanical view of the world the only view; against\nmaking logical consistency the sole test of truth or reality; against\nignoring all data, except those which come through the intellect\nalone; that is, against trying to make a part, not the whole, of man\nthe standard; in other words, against ignoring the data which come\nthrough feeling and will--emotional, \u00e6sthetic, ethical, and religious\ndata, as well as those judgments of worth which underlie reason's\ntheoretical determinations.\n\nMan stands, in fact, everywhere face to face with an actual world of\ngreat complexity, that seems to him at first what James says the\nbaby's world is, \"one big blooming buzzing confusion;\" \"and the\nuniverse of all of us is still to a great extent such a confusion,\npotentially resolvable, and demanding to be resolved, but not yet\nactually resolved, into parts.\"[39] In one sense, man's whole task is\nto think unity and order into this confusion. The problem really\nbecomes that of thinking the universe through in several kinds of\nterms, and then finally bringing all together into one comprehensive\nview. All these are alike ideals which the mind sets before itself.\nThe easiest of these problems is the attempt to think the world\nthrough, in mathematico-mechanical terms. But the attempt to think the\nworld through in \u00e6sthetic or ethical or religious terms is equally\nlegitimate, though it is more difficult. Not only, then, is the\nmathematico-mechanical view not the sole justifiable view, but it\nreally has its justification in an ideal, and success in this attempt\naffords just encouragement for the hope of success in the other more\ndifficult problems.[40]\n\nThe truly mystical holds, then, that the narrow intellectualism is\nunwarranted, because natural science, the mechanical view of the\nworld, is itself an ideal--the \"child of duties,\" as M\u00fcnsterberg calls\nit--and so cannot legitimately rule out other ideals; because we have\njust as immediate a conviction concerning the worth, as concerning the\nlogical consistency of the world; because a narrow intellectualism\nwould make conscious life but a \"barren rehearsal\" of the outer world,\nwithout significance; because if we can trust the indications of our\nintellect, we ought to be able to trust the indications of the rest of\nour nature; and because, thus, the only possible key and standard of\ntruth and reality are in ourselves--the whole self, and \"necessities\nof thought\" become necessities of a reason which means loyally to take\naccount of all the data of the entire man.\n\nAnd the same point may be thus stated. We use the word rational in two\nquite distinct senses: in the narrow sense, as meaning simply the\nintellectual; in the broad sense, as indicating the demands of the\nentire man. The true mysticism stands for the broadly rational.\n\nSo, too, we speak of the necessary fundamental assumption of the\nhonesty or sincerity of the world; but this includes two quite\ndistinct propositions: one, that the world must be thinkable,\nconceivable, construable, a logically consistent whole, a sphere for\nrational thinking,--where the test is consistency; the other, that the\nworld must be worth while, must not mock our highest ideals and\naspirations, must in some true and genuine sense satisfy the whole\nman, be a sphere for rational living,--where the test is worth. All\nour arguments go forward upon these two assumptions. Now, a true\nmysticism contends that the second principle is as rational as the\nfirst, though it must be freely granted that it is not as easy to\nemploy it for detailed conclusions, and it is consequently much more\nliable to abuse. The true mysticism wishes to be not less, but more,\nrational. It knows no shorthand substitute for the hard and steady\nthinking of the philosopher, or for the historical experience of the\nprophet; it needs and uses both.\n\nIn all this, it is plain that the truly mystical is a legitimate\noutgrowth of the emphasis of the social consciousness upon recognition\nof the entire personality. Phillips Brooks finds just this in the\nintellectual life of Jesus. \"The great fact concerning it is this,\" he\nsays, \"that in him the intellect never works alone. You never can\nseparate its workings from the complete operation of the entire\nnature. He never simply knows, but always loves and resolves at the\nsame time.\"[41]\n\n3. _The Self-Controlled Recognition of Emotion._--Moreover, it\nprobably may be fairly claimed that all of the mystical recognition of\nthe emotional which is valuable or even legitimate, is preserved, and\nfar more safely and sanely conceived, in a strictly personal\nconception of religion. It may well be doubted, if it is possible in\nany other way, both to do justice to feeling in religion, and at the\nsame time to keep feeling in its proper place. Is it possible briefly\nto indicate both the recognition of emotion and the control of emotion\nin religion?\n\nThe true mysticism recognizes that the supreme joy is \"joy in personal\nlife\"--joy in entering into the revelation of a person; and it\nbelieves with reason that a growing acquaintance with God must have\nsuch heights and depths of meaning as no other personal relation can\nhave. It is not, therefore, afraid or distrustful of true emotion--of\njoy or peace, of intense longing or of keen satisfaction--in the\nreligious life.\n\nBut the true mysticism knows at the same time that deep revelation of\na person is made only to the reverent, that the conditions are in the\nhighest degree ethical, and above all must be recognized to be so in\nreligion. It does view, then, with deep distrust an emotional emphasis\nin religion that ignores the ethical. It cannot forget that Christ\nthought that everything must be tested by its fruits in life. Paul,\ntoo, insisted on applying the test of an active ministering love to\nthe highly valued emotional experiences of the Corinthians; and writes\nto the Galatians that there is but one infallible proof of the working\nof the Spirit in them--a righteous life: \"love, joy, peace,\nlongsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.\"\n\nAnd a true mysticism knows that the spirit, reverent of personality,\nleads to a self-restraint that does not seek the emotional experience\nsimply as such on _any_ conditions; but, knowing the supreme\npsychological conditions of happiness and character and influence, it\nloses itself in an unselfish love and in absorbing work, and\nunderstands that it must simply let the experiences come. It will have\nnothing, therefore, to do with strained emotion, or with the working\nup of feeling for its own sake. It seeks health, not merely the signs\nof health. It prizes, therefore, the joy that simply proclaims itself\nas the sign of the normal life and so positively strengthens and\ncheers, but it will have nothing of the strain of emotion which is\ndrain.\n\nIt is interesting to notice that it is exactly this true psychological\nattitude concerning the emotional life that Phillips Brooks believed\nthat he found perfectly reflected in Jesus. \"The sensitiveness of\nJesus to pain and joy,\" he says, \"never leads him for a moment to try\nto be sad or happy with direct endeavor; nor, is there any sign that\nhe ever judges the real character of himself or any other man by the\nsadness or the happiness that for the moment covers his life. He\nsimply lives, and joy and sorrow issue from his living, and cast their\nbrightness and their gloominess back upon his life; but there is no\nsorrow and no joy that he ever sought for itself, and he always kept a\nself-knowledge underneath the joy or sorrow, undisturbed by the\nmoment's happiness or unhappiness.\"[42]\n\nHow far from this objectivity and this healthful emotional life is the\natmosphere of most of our devotional books, and, one might say, of all\nthe manuals of ordinary mysticism! That this difficulty should\nconfront us in devotional literature is very natural; for such writing\ncommonly aims to give the emotional sense of reality in religion; and\nis, therefore, particularly under the temptation to show and to\nproduce a straining after the emotion, as for its own sake. Moreover,\nthe very introspection, almost inevitably involved in the reading and\nwriting of devotional books, tends to bring about an artificial change\nin the religious experience, and so to introduce into it the abnormal.\n\nBut the social consciousness, so far as it affects religion, not only\ntends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize the\npersonal, and so to keep the truly mystical, but it is even more plain\nthat it must tend to insist upon the ethical in religion.\n\n[35] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 201 ff.\n\n[36] _Op. cit._, pp. 210 ff.\n\n[37] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 307.\n\n[38] James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 294, 295.\n\n[39] _Psychology_, Briefer Course, p. 16.\n\n[40] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, 633-677; especially 633, 634,\n667, 671, 677; M\u00fcnsterberg, _Psychology and Life_, pp. 23-28.\n\n[41] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 219.\n\n[42] _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 156.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n_THE THOROUGH ETHICIZING OF RELIGION_\n\n\nI. THE PRESSURE OF THE PROBLEM\n\nThe social consciousness looks to the thorough ethicizing of\nreligion. If the social consciousness is to be regarded as\nhistorically justified, it must believe that this growing sense of\nbrotherhood and consequent obligation is simply our response to the\non-working of God's own plan, God's own will expressing itself in us.\nThe purpose to recognize the will of God, thus necessarily involves\nthe recognition of human relations, since, as soon as conscience is\nstrongly stirred in any direction, religion can but feel, in this\ndemand of conscience, the demand of God, and, therefore, must bring\nthe convictions of the social consciousness into religion. Indeed, it\nmay be well believed that Kaftan is right in his insistence that it is\nexactly through the practical, that is, in the realm of the ethical,\nthat knowledge arises from faith.[43]\n\nIn any case, it is evident that the old problem of faith and works, of\nreligion and ethics, of the first and second commandments, meets us\nhere in a way not to be put aside. With an ethical demand so insistent\nas that of the social consciousness no religion can be at peace that\nis not with equal insistence ethical. We are bound, then, to show how\ncommunion with God, the supreme desire to find God, necessarily\ncarries with it active love for men. We must show how we truly commune\nwith God in such active service. The social consciousness, thus,\npositively thrusts upon every religious man, who believes in it, the\nproblem of the thorough ethicizing of religion. Or, to put the matter\nin a slightly different way, if the sense of the value and the\nsacredness of the person is one of the two greatest moral convictions\nof our time, then religion must be clearly seen to hold this\nconviction, or lose its connection with what is most real and vital to\nus. This is the problem.\n\n\nII. THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM\n\nAll will probably agree that religion is communion with God. We have\nseen why the social consciousness cannot accept a falsely mystical\nview of that communion. For similar reasons, it must make absolutely\nsubordinate all non-ethical and simply mysterious means which make no\nappeal to the conscience and to the reason--the falsely sacramental.\nOnly the person is truly sacramental. Much else may be of value, but\nthe touch of personal life is the only absolute essential in religion.\nWe have seen, also, why the social consciousness tends to regard\nreligion as a strictly personal relation.\n\nOur problem thus becomes: How does the desire for personal relation\nwith God, the desire for God himself, lead directly into the ethical\nlife--into the full and practical recognition of the ethical demands\nof the social consciousness?\n\nTo guard against any possible misconception, it is, perhaps, well to\nsay at the start that the desire for a personal relation with God has\nno purpose of returning by another route to the false position of\nmysticism, in the claim of special private revelations that are\nexclusively for it. It expects, rather, personal conviction of that\ngreat revelation that is common to all, and, moreover, it knows well\nthat no personal relation is essentially sensuous, and it certainly\nlooks for no sensuous relation to God.\n\nIt may be worth while, too, to reverse our question for a moment, and\nask how morality necessarily involves religion. The true moral life is\nthe fulfilment of all personal relations, and as such can least of all\nomit the greatest and most fundamental relation which gives being and\nmeaning and value to all the rest--the relation to God. The fully\nmoral life, therefore, must include religion. The unity of the two may\nbe thus seen.\n\nBut the present inquiry looks at the matter from the other side, and\nseeks a careful and thoroughgoing answer to the question: Why is the\nChristian religion, as a personal relation to God, necessarily\nethical?\n\n\nIII. THE ANSWER\n\n1. _Involved in Relation to Christ._--In the first place, then, it\nprobably may be safely claimed that there is no test of the moral life\nof a man so certain as his attitude toward Christ. Setting aside, now,\nany special religious claims of Christ altogether, and recognizing him\nonly as earth's highest character, the supreme artist in living, who\nknows the secret of the moral life more surely and more perfectly than\nany other, he becomes even so the surest touch-stone of character; and\nthe iron filings will not be more certainly attracted to the magnet\nthan will the men of highest character be attracted to Christ when he\nis really seen as he is. There is no test of character so certain as\nthe test of one's personal relation to the best persons. The personal\nattitude toward Christ is the supreme test. In receiving him, in\nbecoming his disciples in a completer sense than we own ourselves the\ndisciples of any other, we make the supreme moral choice of our lives;\nand, if no more is true than has been already said, we so accept as a\nmatter of fact the fullest historical revelation of God at the same\ntime. The ethical and religious here fall absolutely together. And all\nthe subsequent choices of our Christian life, if true to Christ, are\nnecessarily moral.\n\n2. _The Divine Will Felt in the Ethical Command._--In the second\nplace, the sense of the presence of God, of the divine will laid upon\nus, if we have the religious feeling at all, comes to us nowhere in\nour common life so certainly and so persistently as in a sense of\nobligation which we cannot shake off, a sense of facing a clear duty.\nTo run away from this, we are made to feel, is plainly to run away\nfrom God. Is this not a simply true interpretation of the common\nconsciousness? Here, then, the religious experience is in the very\nsphere of the ethical, and identical with it.\n\n3. _Involved in the Nature of God's Gifts._--Again, God's gifts in\nreligion are of such a kind that they simply cannot be given to the\nunwilling soul; just to receive them, therefore, implies willingness\nto use them; and faith becomes inevitably both \"a gift and an\nactivity.\" However one names God's gifts in religion, so long as the\nrelation is kept a spiritual one at all, receiving the gift requires a\nreal ethical attitude in the recipient. A real forgiveness, for\nexample, involves personal reconciliation, restored personal\nrelations; and reconciliation is mutual. One cannot, then, be said in\nany true sense to accept forgiveness from God who is not himself in an\nattitude of reconciliation with God, of harmony of will with him. In\nthe same way, peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, life, God's own\nlife, cannot be really given to any man without an ethical response on\nhis part in a definite attitude of will. Anything arbitrary here is,\ntherefore, necessarily shut out. God's gifts in religion are of such a\nkind that they simply cannot be given to the unwilling soul. They are\nnot things to be mechanically poured out on men. We have no need,\nconsequently, to guard our religious statements in this respect. We\ncannot even receive from God the spiritual gifts of the religious\nrelation without the active will. Here, too, religion is certainly\nethical.\n\n4. _Communion with God, through Harmony with His Ethical Will._--Or,\none may say, desire for real communion with God seeks God himself, not\nthings, or some experience merely. But the very center of personality\nis the will; any genuine seeking of God himself, therefore, to commune\nwith him, requires unity with his ethical will. The deepest religious\nmotive is at the same time, thus, an impulse to character.\n\n5. _The Vision of God for the Pure in Heart._--Christ's own\nstatement--\"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see\nGod\"--suggests another aspect of this essential unity of the religious\nand the ethical. The connection in the beatitude is no chance one. The\nhighest and completest revelation of personality, human or divine, can\nbe made only to the reverent. God reveals himself to the reverent\nsoul, and most of all to the pure--to those souls that are reverent of\npersonality throughout and under the severest pressure. Therefore, the\npure in heart shall see God. \"The secret of the Lord is with them that\nfear him.\"[44] The vision of God requires the spirit that is reverent\nof personality, and this spirit is the abiding source of the finest\nethical living.\n\n6. _Sharing the Life of God._--But perhaps the clearest and most\nsatisfactory putting of the relation is this. The very meaning of\nreligion is sharing the life of God. As soon, now, as God is conceived\nas essentially holy and loving, a God of character, a living will and\nnot a substance--and Christianity to be true to itself, must always so\nconceive him--so soon religion and morality are indissolubly united.\nGod's life, according to Christ's teaching, is the life of constant\nand perfect self-giving. To share the life of God, therefore, to share\nhis single purpose, is to come into the life of loving service. The\ntwo fall together from the point of view of the social consciousness.\nAnd we are \"saved,\" we come into the real religious life, only in the\nproportion in which we have really learned to love. \"Everyone that\nloveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God.\"[45] The old separation of\nreligion and character is impossible from this point of view.\n\n7. _Christ, as Satisfying Our Highest Claims on Life._--But we may\nstill profitably press the question: Is the Christian religion--the\nspecial faith in the revelation of God in Christ, the best way to\nrighteousness? does it necessarily, most naturally, most\nspontaneously, and most joyfully carry righteousness of life with it?\nIf this is to be true, Christian faith, in Herrmann's language, \"must\ngive men the power to submit with joy to the claims of duty.\"[46] It\nmay be doubted whether any one has dealt with this question as\nsatisfactorily as Herrmann himself, and a few sentences may well be\nquoted from his discussion. \"We know that the ordinary instinctive way\nin which men seek the satisfaction of all the needs of life makes it\nimpossible to submit honestly to the demands of duty, and we see,\nalso, the falsity of the childish idea of the mystics that this\ninstinct should be extirpated; it follows, then, that we can only seek\nmoral deliverance in a true and perfect satisfaction of our craving\nfor life.... Now just such a feeling of perfect inner contentment is\npossible to the Christian, and he has it just in proportion as he\nunderstands that God turns to him in Christ.... This is redemption,\nthat Christ creates within us a living joy, whose brightness beams\neven from the eye of sorrow, and tells the world of a power it cannot\ncomprehend. And the power that works redemption is the fact that in\nour world there is a Man whose appearance can at any moment be to us\nthe mighty Word of God, snatching us out of our troubles and making us\nto feel that he desires to have us for his own, and so setting us free\nfrom the world and from our own instinctive nature.\"[47]\n\nChrist, that is, has no desire to withdraw himself from the test of\nthe largest life. He is able to satisfy the highest demands for life.\nHe courts the trial. He claims to offer life, the largest life. \"I\ncame,\" he says, \"that they may have life, and may have it\nabundantly.\"[48] His way of deliverance is not negative but positive,\nnot limiting but fulfilling. He is able to give such largeness of life\nin himself, such inner satisfaction of the craving for life, as makes\na lower life lose its power over us, the larger and higher life\ndriving out the meaner and lower. This is positive victory,\nsupplanting the lower with the higher; just as in literature, in\nmusic, in friendship, and in love, we expect the best to break down\nthe taste for the lower.\n\n8. _The Vision of the Riches of the Life of Christ, Ethically\nConditioned._--But the thought of Christ's satisfying our highest\nclaim on life deserves to be carried further, if it is to be saved\nfrom vagueness and to have its full power with us. The highest value\nin the world is a personal life. So Christ has made us feel. It is\nfinally the only value, for all other so-called values borrow their\nvalue from persons. The highest joy conceivable is entering into the\nriches of another's personal life through his willing self-revelation.\nNow it is no fine fancy that the supremely rich life of the world's\nhistory is Christ's. God can only be known, if we are not to fall back\ninto the vagaries of mysticism, in his concrete manifestation; and God\nopens out in Christ, the New Testament believes, the inexhaustible\nwealth of his own personal life. It is God's highest gift, the gift of\nhimself. \"No one knoweth the Son save the Father; neither doth any\nknow the Father, save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to\nreveal him.\"[49] \"This is life eternal, that they should know thee,\nthe only true God, and him whom thou didst send.\"[50] So it seemed to\nPaul: \"Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this\ngrace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of\nChrist.\"[51] Do we not here catch a glimpse of what the depth of that\nsatisfaction with the inner life of God in Christ may be?\n\n \"For He who hath the heart of God sufficed,\n Can satisfy all hearts,--yea, thine and mine.\"\n\nOnly the riches of a personal life can satisfy our claim on life, our\ndesire for life; and, ultimately, we can be fully satisfied only with\nGod's own life in the fullest revelation he can make of it to us men.\nOnly this can be \"the unspeakable gift.\" The thirst for God, for the\nliving God, is a simply true expression of the human heart when it\ncomes to real self-knowledge.\n\nBut the riches of the personal life of Christ are necessarily hidden\nto one who does not come into the sharing of Christ's purpose. The\ncondition of the vision is ethical. The very satisfaction, therefore,\nof our craving for life constantly impels to a more perfect union with\nthe will of Christ; for such complete entering into the life of\nanother with joy implies profound agreement. The desire for life,\ntherefore, for God's own life, for communion with God, itself impels\nto character. Faith does here give \"the power to submit with joy to\nthe claims of duty,\" and religion is ethical in the very heart of it.\n\n9. _The Moral Law, as a Revelation of the Love of God._--The same\nunity of the religious and ethical life is helpfully seen, if we put\nthe matter in one further and slightly different way. Only the\nChristian religion, faith in God as Father revealed in Christ, enables\nus to welcome the stern demands of duty and so gives us inner\ndeliverance, joy, and liberty in the moral life; for now the moral\ndemand is seen, not as task only, but as opportunity. For Christ, the\nlaw of God is a revelation of the love of God; it is a gracious\nindication--a secret whispered to us--of the lines along which we are\nto find our largest and richest life; it is not a limitation of life,\nbut a way to larger life. Not, then, the avoidance, as far as\npossible, of the law of God, but the completest fulfilment of it is\nthe road to life--following the hint of the law into the remotest\nramifications, and into the inmost spirit, of the life.\n\nThe other attitude which assumes that the law is a hindrance to life\nis a distinct denial of the love of God. It implies that God lays upon\nus demands which are not for our good. It refuses to accept as reality\nChrist's manifestation of God as Father. Real belief in the love of\nGod, on the other hand, must take the fearful out of his commands. To\nbe \"freed from the law,\" now, has quite a different meaning: not the\ntaking off from us of the moral demand, but the inner deliverance,\nthat would not have the command removed, but finds life _in_ it, and\nobeys it freely and joyfully. Only a thoroughgoing and fundamental\nfaith in the Fatherhood of God can bring such inner deliverance, even\nas we have seen that only such a faith can really ground the social\nconsciousness. And such a faith only Christ has proved adequate to\nbring.\n\nWith this light, now, we feel, in every demand of duty, the presence\nof God, and in this presence of God the pledge of life, not a\nlimitation of life. The religious life desires God, and it finds God\nnever so certainly as in the purpose fully to face duty. Every one of\nthe relations of life is, thus, turned to with joy by the religious\nman, as sure to be a further channel of the revelation of God. The\nthirst for God drives to the faithful fulfilment of the human\nrelation. Religion becomes joyfully ethical.\n\nNor is there any possibility of abandonment to the will of God _in\ngeneral_, as the mystic seems often to feel. God's will means\nparticulars all along the way of our life; and there is no communion\nwith God except in this ethical will in particulars. At no point,\ntherefore, can the religious life withdraw itself from the daily duty\nand maintain its own existence. The constant inevitable condition of\nthe religious communion is the ethical will. Our providential place is\nGod's place to find us. Where God has put us, just there he will best\nfind us. This is further seen in the fact that the true Christian\nexperience is a constant paradox: God ever satisfying, and yet ever\nimpelling--never allowing us to remain where we are, but holding up to\nus the always higher ideal beyond; the law is ever, \"Of his fulness we\nall received, and grace in place of grace.\"[52] The deepening\ncommunion with God is only through a constantly deepening moral life.\n\nSuch a thoroughgoing ethicizing of religion as the social\nconsciousness demands, we need not hesitate, therefore, to believe is\npossible. The truer religion is to its own great aspiration after God,\nthe more certainly is it ethical.\n\nBut the social consciousness, so far as it influences religion, not\nonly tends to draw away from the falsely mystical, and to emphasize\nthe personal and the ethical, it also tends to emphasize in religion\nthe concretely, historically Christian.\n\n[43] Cf. _American Journal of Theology_, Oct., 1898, p. 824.\n\n[44] Psalm 25:14.\n\n[45] I John 4:7.\n\n[46] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 230.\n\n[47] _Op. cit._, pp. 232-234.\n\n[48] John 10:10.\n\n[49] Matt. 11:27.\n\n[50] John 17:3.\n\n[51] Eph. 3:8.\n\n[52] John 1:16. Cf. Herrmann, _Op. cit._, pp. 92, 93.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n_THE EMPHASIS OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THE HISTORICALLY\nCHRISTIAN IN RELIGION_\n\n\nThe fact that the social consciousness tends to emphasize in\nreligion the concretely historically Christian, has been so inevitably\ninvolved in the preceding discussions, that it can be treated very\nbriefly.\n\n\nI. THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS NEEDS HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATION\n\nThe justification of the social consciousness, we have seen,[53] must\nbe pre\u00ebminently from history. Neither nature nor speculation can\nsatisfy it. It needs to be able to believe in a living God who is in\nliving relation to living men. It needs just such a justification as\nhistorical Christianity, and only historical Christianity, can give;\nit needs the assurance of an objective divine will in the world,\ndefinitely working in the line of its own ideals. It needs also to be\nable to give such definite content to the thought of God as shall be\nable to satisfy its own strong insistence upon the rational and the\nethical as historical.\n\n\nII. CHRISTIANITY'S RESPONSE TO THIS NEED\n\nIf religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then,\nthere must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in\nactual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God\nof mystic contemplation. This discernment of God in the real world, in\nactual history, is the glory even of the Old Testament; and it came,\nas we have seen, along the line of the social consciousness. And it is\nsuch a real revelation of the real God that Christianity finds\npre\u00ebminently in Christ. It can say to the social consciousness: Make\nno effort to believe, but simply put yourself in the presence of a\nconcrete, definite, actual, historical fact, with its perennial\nethical appeal; put yourself in the presence of Christ--the greatest\nand realest of the facts of history,--and let that fact make its own\nlegitimate impression, work its own natural work; that fact alone, of\nall the facts of history, gives you full and ample warrant for your\nown being.\n\nIf this be true, it can hardly be doubted that, so far as the social\nconsciousness understands itself and influences religion at all, it\nwill tend to emphasize, not to underestimate, the concretely,\nhistorically Christian.\n\nThe natural influence of the social consciousness upon religion, then,\nmay be said to be fourfold: it tends to draw away from the falsely\nmystical; it tends to emphasize the personal in religion, and so to\nkeep the truly mystical; it tends to emphasize the ethical in\nreligion; and it needs the concretely, historically Christian.\n\n[53] Cf above, pp. 59 ff.\n\n\n\n\nTHE INFLUENCE OF THE SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS UPON THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n_GENERAL RESULTS_\n\n\nThe question of this third division of our inquiry is this: To what\nchanged points of view, and to what restatements of doctrine, and so\nto what better appreciation of Christian truth, does the social\nconsciousness of our time lead? The question is raised here, as in the\ncase of the conception of religion, not as one of exact historical\nconnection, but rather as a question of sympathetic points of contact.\nIt means simply: With what changes in theological statements would the\nsocial consciousness naturally find itself most sympathetic?\n\nCertain general results are clear from the start, and might be\nanticipated from any one of several points of view.\n\n\nI. THE CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY IN PERSONAL TERMS\n\nIn the first place, the social consciousness means, we have found,\nemphasis on the fully personal--a fresh awakening to the significance\nof the person and of personal relations. Its whole activity is in the\nsphere of personal relations. Hence, as in the conception of religion,\nso here, so far as the social consciousness affects theology at all,\nit will tend everywhere to bring the personal into prominence, and it\ncertainly will be found in harmony ultimately with the attempt to\nconceive theology in terms of personal relations. These are for the\nsocial consciousness the realest of realities; and if theology is to\nbe real to the social consciousness, then it must make much of the\npersonal. Theology, thus, it is worth while seeing, is not to be\npersonal _and_ social, but it will be social--it will do justice to\nthe social consciousness--if it does justice to the fully personal;\nfor, in the language of another, \"man is social, just in so far as he\nis personal.\"[54]\n\nThe foreign and unreal seeming of many of the old forms of statement,\nit may well be noted in passing, has its probable cause just here.\nThey were not shaped in the atmosphere of the social consciousness.\nThey got at things in a way we should not now think of using. The\nmethod of approach was too merely metaphysical and individualistic and\nmystical, and the result seems to us to have but slight ethical or\nreligious significance. The arguments that now move us most, in this\nentire realm of spiritual inquiry, are moral and social rather than\nmetaphysical and mystical. It is interesting to see, for example, how\nsuch arguments for immortality as that of the simplicity of the soul's\nbeing--and most of those used by Plato--and how such arguments even\nfor the existence of God as those of Samuel Clarke from time and\nspace, have become for us merely matters of curious inquiry. We can\nhardly imagine men having given them real weight. A similar change\nseems to be creeping over the laborious attempts metaphysically to\nconceive the divinity of Christ. The question is shifting its position\nfor both radical and conservative to a new ground--from the\nmetaphysical and mystical to the moral and social; though some\nradicals who regard themselves as in the van of progress have not yet\nfound it out, and so find fault with one for not continually defining\nhimself in terms of the older metaphysical formulas and shibboleths.\nThe considerations, in all these questions and in many others, which\nreally weigh most with us now, are considerations which belong to the\nsphere of the personal spiritual life. Ultimately, no doubt, a\nmetaphysics is involved here too; but it is a metaphysics whose final\nreality is spirit, not an unknown substance--Locke's \"something, I\nknow not what.\"\n\nThe unsatisfactoriness of even so honored a symbol as the Apostles'\nCreed, as a permanently adequate statement of Christian faith, must\nfor similar reasons become increasingly clear in the atmosphere of the\nsocial consciousness. One wonders, as he goes carefully over it, that\nso many concrete statements could be made concerning the Christian\nreligion, which yet are so little ethical. The creed seems almost to\nexclude the ethical. It has nothing to say, except by rather distant\nimplication, of the character of God, of the character of Christ, or\nof the character of men. The life of Christ between his birth and his\ndeath are untouched. The considerations that really weigh most with\nus--as they did with the apostles--in making us Christians, certainly\ndo not come here to prominent expression. This whole difference of\natmosphere is the striking fact; and were it not that we instinctively\ninterpret its phrases in accordance with our modern consciousness, we\nshould feel the difference much more than we do.\n\nWhat the previous discussion has called the truly mystical--the\nrecognition of the whole man, of the entire personality--is coming in\nincreasingly to correct both the falsely mystical and the falsely\nmetaphysical. We are arguing now, in harmony with the social\nconsciousness, from the standpoint of the broadly rational, not from\nthat of the narrowly intellectual.\n\n\nII. THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD, AS THE DETERMINING PRINCIPLE IN THEOLOGY\n\nOne might reach essentially the same general results from the\ninfluence of the social consciousness, by seeing that, so far as it\ndeepens for us the meaning of the personal, it will deepen immediately\nour conception of the Fatherhood of God--the central and dominating\ndoctrine in all theology--and so affect all theology. For, with a\nchange in the conception of God, no doctrine can go wholly untouched.\nEvery step into a deeper feeling for the personal--and the growth of\nthe modern social consciousness is undoubtedly a long step in that\ndirection--deepens necessarily religion and theology. Perhaps the\npossible results here can be illustrated in no way better than by\nrecalling Patterson DuBois' putting of the needed change in the\nconception of the proper attitude of a father toward his child. We are\nnot to say, he writes: \"I will conquer that child, no matter what it\nmay cost him,\" but we are to say, \"I will help that child to conquer\nhimself, no matter what it may cost me.\" Now that change in point of\nview is a well-nigh perfect illustration of the social consciousness\nin a given relation, and it cannot be doubted that it is a true\nexpression of Christ's thought of the Fatherhood of God; but has it\nreally dominated through and through our theological statements?\nManifestly, what it means to us that God is Father depends on what we\nhave come to see in fatherhood. And Principal Fairbairn, in the second\npart of his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, has given us a\ngood illustration of how much it means for theology to be in earnest\nin making the Fatherhood of God the determining doctrine in theology.\n\n\nIII. CHRIST'S OWN SOCIAL EMPHASES\n\nAgain, if the general influence of the social consciousness upon\ntheological doctrine is to be recognized at all, it is evident that a\nChristian theology must take full account of Christ's own social\nemphases. By loyalty to these, it will expect best to meet the need of\nan enlightened social consciousness. It will strive thus--to use\nProfessor Peabody's instructive summary of \"the social principles of\nthe teaching of Jesus\"--to be true to \"the view from above, the\napproach from within, and the movement toward a spiritual end; wisdom,\npersonality, idealism; a social horizon, a social power, a social aim.\nThe supreme truth that this is God's world gave to Jesus his spirit of\nsocial optimism; the assurance that man is God's instrument gave to\nhim his method of social opportunism; the faith that in God's world\nGod's people are to establish God's kingdom gave him his social\nidealism. He looks upon the struggling, chaotic, sinning world with\nthe eye of an unclouded religious faith, and discerns in it the\nprinciple of personality fulfilling the will of God in social\nservice.\"[55]\n\nAnd every one of these three great social principles of Jesus has\nobvious theological applications, not yet fully made.\n\nThe social consciousness, indeed, well illustrates Fairbairn's\nadmirable statement of how progress is to be expected in theology.\n\"The longer the history [of Christ],\" he says, \"lives in the\n[Christian] consciousness and penetrates it, the more does the\nconsciousness become able to interpret the history in its own terms\nand according to its own contents. The old pagan mind into which\nChristianity first came could not possibly be the best interpreter of\nChristianity, and the more the mind is cleansed of the pagan the more\nqualified it becomes to interpret the religion. It is, therefore,\nreasonable to expect that the later forms of faith should be the truer\nand purer.\"[56]\n\nNow the social consciousness itself is a genuine manifestation of the\nspirit of Christ at work in the world, and the mind permeated with\nthis social consciousness is consequently better able to turn back to\nthe teaching of Jesus and give it proper interpretation.\n\n\nIV. THE REFLECTION IN THEOLOGY OF THE CHANGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF\nRELIGION\n\nOnce more, theology, as an expression of religion, will at once\nreflect any change in the conception of religion. The influence of the\nsocial consciousness upon religion, already traced, will, therefore,\ninevitably pass over into theology. This means nothing less than a\nchanged point of view, in the consideration of each doctrine. For\ntheology must then recognize clearly that it can build on no falsely\nmystical conception of communion with God; but, while keeping the\nelements in mysticism which are justified by the social consciousness,\nit will require of itself throughout a formulation of doctrine in\nterms that shall be thoroughly personal, thoroughly ethical, and\nindubitably loyal to the concretely historically Christian. Many\ntraditional statements quite fail to meet so searching a test; but no\nlower standard can give a theology that should fully meet the demands\nof the social consciousness.\n\nThe general results of the influence of the social consciousness upon\ntheological doctrine, then, may be said to include: The emphasis upon\nthe fully personal, and so conceiving theology in terms of personal\nrelation; the deepening of the conception of the Fatherhood of God,\nand making this the determining principle in theology; the application\nof the social principles of the teaching of Jesus to theology; the\nreflection in theology of the natural changes in the conception of\nreligion wrought by the social consciousness. Now any one of these\ngeneral results indicates the certain influence of the social\nconsciousness upon theology, and any one might be followed out into\nhelpful suggestions for the restatement of theological doctrines.\n\nBut we shall probably most clearly and definitely answer the question\nof our theme, if we ask specifically concerning the several elements\nof the social consciousness: How does a deepening sense of the\nlike-mindedness of men, of the mutual influence of men, of the value\nand sacredness of the person, of personal obligation, and of love,\ntend to affect our theological point of view and mode of statement?\nAnd our inquiry will follow these separate questions in separate\nchapters, except that for the purposes of theological inference, the\nlast three may be appropriately grouped together.\n\n[54] Nash, _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 259.\n\n[55] Peabody, _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 104.\n\n[56] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 186.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE LIKE-MINDEDNESS OF MEN\nUPON THEOLOGY_\n\n\nIn definitely considering the influence of the social consciousness\nupon theological doctrines, our first question becomes: How does the\ndeepening sense of the like-mindedness of men affect theology?\n\nObviously, here, the change will be largely one of mood. We shall look\nat our themes with a different feeling, and so speak differently,\nmodifying our methods of putting things in those slight ways that do\nnot seem specially significant to one who judges in the mass, but mean\nvery much to one who feels the finer implications of personal life.\nThese finer changes no one can hope to follow out in detail. Certain\nof these finer changes will naturally find incidental expression in\nthe course of the more formal treatment.\n\nBut our attention must be mainly given to the statement of some of the\nmost important of the plainer results of the principle in theology.\n\n\nI. NO PRIME FAVORITES WITH GOD\n\nIn the first place, this conviction of the like-mindedness of men\nmeans that there can be no prime favorites with God.\n\nIt can hardly help affecting the thought of election. Election will,\nindeed, be thought of as qualified by the character of the chosen; for\neven Paul's argument in Romans clearly recognizes this, and is, in\nfact, itself a distinct argument against a narrow doctrine of\nelection, as others have recognized.[57] But, beyond this, the\nconviction of the like-mindedness of men will especially view election\nas a choice for service. The divine method of election must be in\nharmony with Christ's fundamental principle of his kingdom, and with\nthe developing social consciousness: \"Whosoever shall be first among\nyou, shall be servant of all.\"[58] It is no accident that this thought\nof election as choice for pre\u00ebminent service, which is indeed soundly\nbiblical, has come into special prominence in these days of the social\nconsciousness. The same change is passing over our view of the\n\"elect,\" as of the \"privileged\" and \"governing\" classes. We shall not\nreturn to the older feeling of prime favorites of God, and the problem\nof evil will find herein a certain alleviation. We shall feel\nincreasingly that each race and each individual have their calling and\nhave their compensating advantages; and that, when it comes down to\nthe final test of opportunity, the differences in opportunity between\nindividuals are far less than they seem; for to each one is given the\npossibility of the largest service any man can render--the possibility\nof touching closely with the very spirit of his life a few other\nlives. \"There are compensations,\" as James says, \"and no outward\nchanges of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal\nmeaning from singing in all sorts of different men's hearts.\"[59]\n\n\nII. THE GREAT UNIVERSAL QUALITIES AND INTERESTS, THE MOST VALUABLE\n\nMoreover, since equality of need among men,[60] implies, as we have\nseen, a common capacity--even if in varying degrees--of entering into\nthe most fundamental interests of life, this belief in the essential\nlikeness of men is likely to carry with it that most wholesome\nconviction for theology, that the great universal qualities and\ninterests are the most valuable. Not that which distinguishes us from\none another, but that which we have in common is most valuable. As\nHowells tells the boys in his _A Boy's Town_, \"the first thing you\nhave to learn here below, is that in essentials you are just like\nevery one else, and that you are different from others only in what is\nnot so much worth while.\"[61] This consideration is no small help in\nfacing that most difficult problem for any ideal view of the\nworld--the problem of evil.\n\nIn God's world, we feel that the most common things ought to be the\nbest. And this growing conviction of the social consciousness comes in\nto confirm our faith. The constant and simple insistence of Christ on\nreceptivity as a fundamental quality in his kingdom is built, in fact,\non an optimistic faith in the value of the common things.\n\nIt is interesting to notice the varied confirmations of the value of\nthe common. How often we have to feel that the deepest discussions\ncome out with only deeper insight into the great common truths; and,\non the other hand, that in stilted philosophizing, what seems at first\nsight a great discovery, proves only a perversely obscure way of\nputting a common truth.\n\nIt is the very mission of genius--of the poet in the larger sense, we\nare coming to feel, to bring out the value of the common. His\ndistinctive mark is that he has kept a fresh sense for the great\ncommon experiences of life. So Kipling prays:\n\n \"It is enough that through Thy grace\n I saw naught common on Thy earth.\n Take not that vision from my ken.\"\n\nSo, the greatest in art, Hegel contends, has a universal appeal.\n\nIt is a wholesome and heartening conviction, I say, to bring into\ntheology, that the really best things are common, accessible to all,\nactually shared in, to an extent beyond that which our superficial\nvision seems to show. For, after all, this conviction of the social\nconsciousness is only bringing home to us, in a new and appreciable\nway, Christ's own optimism and his own faith in the love of the\nFather. It is only another illustration of Fairbairn's principle of\nthe Christian consciousness becoming more Christian, and so better\nable to understand and interpret Christ.\n\nAnd it leads us back by this route of the social consciousness, to\nemphasize in life, and in our theological thinking upon the conditions\nof entering the kingdom of God, Christ's own insistence upon the two\nuniversally human characteristics found in every child--susceptibility\nand trust, which, voluntarily cherished, become teachableness and\nbelief in love. If God is Father indeed, and we are intended to come\nto our best in association with him, these qualities must be the most\nfundamental ones. And they imply no lack of virility, either, for the\nhighest self-assertion, as Professor Everett pointed out in his\ncriticism of Nietzsche, is in complete self-surrender to such a will\nas God's. \"When Jesus said, 'He that loseth his life shall save it,'\nhe said in effect--The self-surrender to which I call you is the\ntruest self-assertion. We find thus in the teachings of Christianity a\nsummons to strength far greater than that implied by the\nself-assertion which is most characteristic of the teachings of\nNietzsche, because it is the assertion of a larger self.\"[62]\n\nOur outlook becomes well-nigh hopeless, when we make our tests of\nadmission to the kingdom so much more exclusive than Christ himself\nmade them.\n\n\nIII. ESSENTIAL LIKENESS UNDER VERY DIVERSE FORMS\n\nIt is particularly important for theology that this conviction of the\nlike-mindedness of men has come from a growing power to discern\nessential likeness under very diverse forms; for this consideration\nbears not only on the problem of natural evil, but also on the problem\nof sin and of the progress of Christianity.\n\nWe have taken some curiously diverse paths to this understanding of\ndiverse lives. Travels, history, biography, autobiographical\nfragments, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and--to no small\ndegree--fiction, with its stories of out-of-the-way places and\nout-of-the-way peoples and of unfamiliar classes,--all have been\nthoroughfares for the social consciousness here.\n\nWe are slowly learning to see the likeness under the differences, and\nso to transcend the differences even between occidental and oriental.\nAll this means much, not only for our practical missionary putting of\nthe truth, but also for our final theological statements. They will\ninevitably grow simpler, larger, more universally human, and at the\nsame time more deep and solid.\n\nWe are slowly learning, too, to discern a deep inner content of life\nunder conditions that have no appeal for us, and to see like ideals\nand aspirations under very diverse forms of expression. Take, for\nexample, these three or four sentences--a small part of that quoted by\nProfessor James in his essay, _On a Certain Blindness in Human\nBeings_,--from Stevenson's _Lantern-Bearers_: \"It is said that a poet\nhas died young in the breast of the most stolid. It may be contended\nrather that a (somewhat minor) bard in almost every case survives, and\nis the spice of life to his possessor. Justice is not done to the\nversatility and the unplumbed childishness of man's imagination. His\nlife from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be some\ngolden chamber at the heart of it in which he dwells delighted.\"[63]\nAnd, later, on the side of ideals, Stevenson is quoted once again: \"If\nI could show you these men and women all the world over, in every\nstage of history, under every abuse of error, under every circumstance\nof failure, without hope, without help, without thanks, still\nobscurely fighting the lost fight of virtue, still clinging to some\nrag of honor, the poor jewel of their souls!\"[64] And now, having\nquoted Howells and Stevenson as theological authorities, I shall be\npardoned if, for a moment, I erect Kenneth Grahame's _Golden Age_ into\na \"theological institute\": \"See,\" said my friend, bearing somewhat on\nmy shoulder, \"how this strange thing, this love of ours, lives and\nshines out in the unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields\nin early morning? Barren acres, all! But only stoop--catch the light\nthwartwise--and all is a silver network of gossamer! So the fairy\nfilaments of this strange thing underrun and link together the whole\nworld. Yet it is not the old imperious god of the fatal bow--+her\u00f4s\nhanikate machan+--not that--nor even the placid respectable\n+storg\u00ea+--but something still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more\ndivine! Only one must stoop to see it, old fellow, one must\nstoop!\"[65]\n\nIt means very much for the sanity of our outlook on life, and for any\npossible theodicy, that we can believe the heart of such a view as\nthis for which Stevenson and Grahame are here contending. And what is\nall this attempt to get away from this \"certain blindness in human\nbeings,\" of which Professor James speaks, but a growing into one of\nthe fixed habits of Jesus, what Phillips Brooks calls \"his discovery\nof interest in people whom the world generally would have found most\nuninteresting?\" \"And this same habit,\" he adds, \"passing over into his\ndisciples, made the wide and democratic character of the new\nfaith.\"[66]\n\n\nIV. AS APPLIED TO THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY\n\nIt may probably be safely said that this steadily growing conviction\nof the social consciousness, of the essential likeness of all men,\nwhich is daily confirmed afresh, and the more confirmed the more\ncareful the study, is not likely to take kindly to the idea--which\ncomes into a part of Dr. McConnell's argument concerning immortality,\nin his interesting book, _The Evolution of Immortality_--that living\ncreatures classed as men on physical grounds are not, therefore, to be\nso classed on psychical grounds.[67] The considerations and\nillustrations brought forward by Dr. McConnell, in connection with\nthis proposition, I cannot think would seem at all conclusive to\neither the trained psychologist or sociologist. It is exactly the\nlike-mindedness of men which the social consciousness affirms, and it\nhas not come hastily to its conclusion. It will not quickly surrender\nthat conclusion. There _is_ an \"evolution of immortality,\" and it has\nbeen age-long, but it is pre-human. The belief in immortality so far\nas it does not rest purely on the question of the moral quality of a\ngiven human life (where the hypothesis of \"immortability\" may properly\nenough come in) is grounded upon characteristics--like that of the\npossibility of absolutely indefinite progress[68]--which in sober\nscientific inquiry cannot safely be denied to any man, and must be\ndenied to all creatures below man. In any case, the new theory of\n\"immortability,\" so far as it is based upon the proposition here\nconsidered, has its battle to fight out with this established\nconviction of the social consciousness of the essential\nlike-mindedness of all men.\n\nThere are various considerations, not all of them wholly creditable,\nwhich will lead many to turn a willing ear to this new prophesying;\nbut, though it makes much of evolution, it seems to me to have the\nwhole trend of the social evolution against it, and to give the lie to\nthat patient sympathetic insight into the lives of other classes and\npeoples, which is one of the finest products of the ethical evolution\nof the race. If one is tempted to believe that a good large share of\nthe human race are really brutes in human semblance,--and our\nselfishness and pride and impatience and unloving lack of insight and\ndesire to dominate may naturally tempt in this direction,--let him\nread that chapter of Professor James to which reference has already\nbeen made, _On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings_, and its pendant,\n_What Makes a Life Significant_. It may help his theology. Let him\nrecall the words of Phillips Brooks concerning this \"strange\nhopelessness about the world, joined to a strong hope for themselves,\nwhich we see in many good religious people.\" \"In their hearts they\nrecognize indubitably that God is saving them, while the aspect of the\nworld around them seems to show them that the world is going to\nperdition. This is a common enough condition of mind; but I think it\nmay be surely said that it is not a good, nor can it be a permanent,\ncondition. God has mercifully made us so that no man can constantly\nand purely believe in any great privilege for himself unless he\nbelieves in at least the possibility of the same privilege for other\nmen.\"[69]\n\n\nV. CONSEQUENT LARGER SYMPATHY WITH MEN, FAITH IN MEN, AND HOPE FOR MEN\n\nThis whole conviction of the social consciousness, of the\nlike-mindedness of men, leads naturally to increased _sympathy with\nmen_, and this in turn to still better discernment of moral and\nspiritual realities. And this is of prime importance for the\ntheologian; for sympathetic insight, it must never be forgotten, is\nthe true route to spiritual verities. So far as our insight into\nactual human life becomes truer, so far our theology becomes clearer\nand more reasonable.\n\nThis conviction leads also to increased _belief in men_, and\nconsequently to increased belief in the effectiveness of the higher\nappeals. The temptation to disbelief in man was one of the underlying\ntemptations of Christ as he looked forward to his work; but he turned\nresolutely from it, and refused to build his kingdom on any lower\nappeal that implied a lack of faith in men. Nothing seems to me more\nwonderful in Christ than his marvelous faith in man; for, though he\nhas the deepest sense of the sin of men, there is not the slightest\ntrace of cynicism in his thought or life.\n\nThis recognition of likeness under diversity, too, leads to increased\n_hope for men_, here and hereafter. In James' words: \"It absolutely\nforbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of\nforms of existence other than our own.... Neither the whole of truth\nnor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer.... No one\nhas insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them\noff-hand.\"[70]\n\nThis thought helps us to greater hope for men, because, indeed, it\nhelps us to the discernment of genuine ideals under very different\nforms of life, of the universal sense of duty and some loyalty to it,\nthough there is great diversity of judgment as to what is duty.[71]\nBut, it is here to be noted, also, that the thought of the\nlike-mindedness of men brings greater hope, because it helps to the\ndiscernment of likeness, even under difference in important terms\nused. We are coming to see that there is sometimes, at least, a really\nstrong religious faith where men do not acknowledge the term. Thus,\nBradley says: \"All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the\nregion of ordinary facts. Some in one way, and some in others, we seem\nto touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In\nvarious manners we find something higher, which supports and humbles,\nboth chastens and transports us. And,\" as a philosopher he adds, \"with\ncertain persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is\na principal way of thus experiencing the Deity.\"[72]\n\nEven where the term Deity would be entirely abjured, we have seen with\nPaulsen,[73] that a real faith essentially religious in character may\nbe clearly manifest. We are even coming to see that men may seem to\nthemselves to be contending upon opposite sides of so fundamental a\nquestion as that of the personality of God, and yet be near together\nas to their own ultimate faith and attitude, and possibly even as to\ntheir real philosophical views of God; but the same term has come to\nhave such different connotations for the men, from their different\neducation and experience, that they simply cannot use it with the same\nmeaning.\n\nI have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical,\ndefinitely personal religion of Jesus to the ambiguities of\nphilosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more\nconsciously and avowedly Christian. But I do not, on the other hand,\nas a Christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential\nlikenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because\nthey are clothed in different garb. The life and teaching of Jesus\nhave worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the\nlimits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. There is doubtless\nmuch \"unconscious Christianity,\" much \"unconscious following of\nChrist.\"[74] And we are only following Christ's own counsel, when we\nrefuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name,\nthough he follows not with us.[75] Certainly, if we accept the witness\nof a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of\nhis lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against\nthe witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong.\n\nWith reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening\nsense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of\nnote, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come\ninto existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral\nunripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. The careful\nstudy of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific\nsociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical\nimmaturity of men. But deeper than this recognition of moral\nunripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral\nand spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the\nimmense differences among men as to _what_ is duty, deeper than the\ndifferences in even the most important terms used, lies this great\nconviction of likeness--that all men are moral and spiritual beings,\nmade for relation to one another and to God; that they have ideals\nthat have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to\nthese ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral\nand spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact.\n\n\nVI. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO LIGHT, AND THE MORAL REALITY OF THE FUTURE\nLIFE\n\nIt is no accident, now, that accompanying this double social\nconviction, there has come into theology a new insistence upon the\nprinciple of judgment of a man according to his light, and\nconsequently also, what Professor Clarke calls \"a tendency toward the\nrecognition of greater reality and freedom in the other life, and thus\ntoward the possibility of moral change.\"[76] Our conception of the\nfuture life was certain to be modified by the social consciousness;\nand it may be doubted if any influence of the social consciousness\nupon theology can be more clearly traced historically than this. The\nmotives that have been working in our minds here include, on the one\nhand, a wholesome sense of the imperfection of even the best human\nlives; a glad discernment, on the other hand, of the presence of\ngenuine ideals in lives where we had thought there were none; the\ncertainty that, as Dr. Clarke says, \"for at least one-third of mankind\nthe entire life of conscious and developed personality is lived in the\nother world;\"[77] an experienced unwillingness to say, where we cannot\nsee, the precise point at which the very diverse lives of men under\nvery diverse conditions come to full moral maturity; and the\nconviction that a life that is to be moral at all must be moral\neverywhere and through all time, and that where even we can see a\nlittle, God can see much more. All these motives, now, make us refuse,\nwith Christ, to answer the question, \"Are there few that be saved?\"\nAnd both with increasing hope, and with that increasing sense of the\nseriousness and significance of life which so characterizes the social\nconsciousness, to urge: \"Strive to enter in.\" The growing sense of the\nlikeness of men does affect our thought of the future life. The best\nmen, under the clearest light, have only begun; for the best, there is\nstill much need of growth. Who has not begun at all? For whom is there\nno growth?\n\nLet us make no mistake here. It is no light-hearted indifference to\ncharacter, to which the genuine social consciousness leads. No age,\nindeed, ever saw so clearly as ours that the most essential conditions\nof happiness are in character, or was more certain that sin carries\nwith it its own inevitable consequences. It is not a less, but a more,\nprofound sense of the seriousness of the problem of moral character,\nthat makes us hesitate to dogmatize concerning the future life.\n\nTo bring together, now, the conclusions of the chapter: The first\nelement in the social consciousness--the deepening sense of the\nlikeness of men--seems likely to affect theology, especially by\nmodifying the thought of election through emphasis upon choice for\nservice, and through the clear recognition that there are no prime\nfavorites with God; by strengthening the conviction that the great\ncommon qualities and interests are the most valuable, and that genuine\nand largely common ideals may be found under very diverse forms and\nconditions; and thus, on the one hand, by opposing the denial of the\npsychical likeness of men, as applied to the problem of immortality,\nand, on the other hand, by bringing us to larger sympathy with men, to\nlarger faith in men, and to larger hope for men; and, finally, by\nlaying new emphasis upon judgment according to light, and upon the\nmoral reality and freedom of the future life.\n\n[57] Cf. e. g., Clarke, _Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 145.\n\n[58] Mark 10:44.\n\n[59] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 301.\n\n[60] Cf. Giddings, _Elements of Sociology_, p. 324.\n\n[61] Howells, _A Boy's Town_, p. 205.\n\n[62] _The New World_, Dec., 1898, pp. 702, 703.\n\n[63] James, _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, p. 237.\n\n[64] _Op. cit._, p. 282.\n\n[65] P. 112.\n\n[66] Brooks, _The Influence of Jesus_, p. 253.\n\n[67] McConnell, _The Evolution of Immortality_, pp. 75 ff.\n\n[68] Cf. James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, pp. 348 ff., p. 367; Lotze, _The\nMicrocosmus_, Book V, especially Vol. I, pp. 713, 714.\n\n[69] _The Candle of the Lord, and Other Sermons_, p. 154.\n\n[70] _Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals_, pp. 263, 265.\n\n[71] Cf. above, p. 121 ff.\n\n[72] Bradley, _Appearance and Reality_, pp. 5, 6.\n\n[73] Cf. above, pp. 46, 47.\n\n[74] Cf. Fremantle, _The World as the Subject of Redemption_, pp.\n250 ff, 320 ff; Lyman Abbott, _The Outlook_, Dec. 24, 1898.\n\n[75] Mark 9:38, 39; Cf. Matt. 10:40-42.\n\n[76] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 475.\n\n[77] _Op. cit._, p. 469.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN\nUPON THEOLOGY_\n\n\nFrom this first element of the social consciousness, we turn now to\nthe second, and ask, How does the deepening sense of the mutual\ninfluence of men affect theology?\n\n\nI. THE REAL UNITY OF THE RACE\n\n1. First, then, taken with the sense of the likeness of men, it can\nhardly be doubted that sociology's strong feeling of the mutual\ninfluence of men deepens for theology the thought of the real, not the\nmechanical, unity of the race. The theologian believes, more than he\ndid, in a race whose unity is pre\u00ebminently moral, rather than physical\nor mystical. The truly scientific position for the theologian seems to\nbe, to make no mysterious assumptions, where well-known causes are\nsufficient to account for the facts; and those causes which the social\nconsciousness clearly sees to be at work seem, in all probability,\nadequate to account for the facts in discussion so far as those facts\nare finite at all.[78] The theologian knows, then, a true moral\nuniverse, with a unity which is that of the close personal, mutual\nrelations of like-minded spiritual beings.\n\nThe natural goal of such a race, the only one in which they can truly\nfind themselves, is the kingdom of God. This conception of Christ is\nfirst thoroughly at home with us, when we see that the true unity of\nthe race is that of personal moral relation. So far as men turn from\nthat goal, this same racial unity of the inevitable and most intimate\npersonal relations converts them into something approaching Ritschl's\nconception of an opposing \"kingdom of sin.\"\n\nAre we prepared to be thoroughly loyal to just this conception of the\nunity of the race throughout our theological thinking; and so to give\nup cherished ideas of \"common,\" \"transmitted,\" \"inherited,\" or\n\"racial\" sin or righteousness, of \"mystical solidarity,\" and racial\nideal representation, etc.? It probably may be said with truth that\nfew, if any, theological systems have been thus loyal. Indeed, under\nwhat seems a mistaken application of the social consciousness, and\nparticularly under the misleading influence of the analogy of the\norganism, men have believed themselves attaining a deeper theological\nview, when they have, in fact, turned away from the sober teaching of\nthe social consciousness.\n\nIt may not be in vain for our theology to hear and receive with\npatience a sociologist's definition of the \"social mind.\" Upon this\npoint Professor Giddings says explicitly: \"There is no reason to\nsuppose that society is a great being which is conscious of itself\nthrough some mysterious process of thinking, separate and distinct\nfrom the thinking that goes on in the brains of individual men. At any\nrate, there is no possible way yet known to man of proving that there\nis any such supreme social consciousness.\" Nevertheless, he adds: \"To\nthe group of facts that may be described as the simultaneous\nlike-mental-activity of two or more individuals in communication with\none another, or as a concert of the emotions, thought, and will of two\nor more communicating individuals, we give the name, the social mind.\nThis name, accordingly, should be regarded as meaning just this group\nof facts and nothing more. It does not mean that there is any other\nconsciousness than that of individual minds. It does mean that\nindividual minds act simultaneously in like ways and continually\ninfluence one another; and that certain mental products result from\nsuch combined mental action which could not result from the thinking\nof an individual who had no communication with fellow-beings.\"[79]\n\nJust so far, it may well be supposed, and no farther may we go, in\ntheology, in moral and spiritual inferences from the unity of the\nrace. We are members one of another for good and for ill, one in the\nunity of the inevitable, mutual influence of like-minded persons.\n\n\nII. DEEPENING THE SENSE OF SIN\n\nAnd this conviction, in the second place, not only deepens our sense\nof the real unity of the race, it deepens also the sense of sin. And\nwe can hardly separate here the influence of the third element of the\nsocial consciousness--the sense of the value and sacredness of the\nperson. As against a rather wide-spread and often expressed contrary\nfeeling, this deepening sense of sin may yet, it is believed, be\ntruthfully maintained, _so far as the social consciousness is really\nmaking itself felt_. There are some disintegrating tendencies here, no\ndoubt, like the tendency under some applications of evolution and\nevolutionary philosophy to turn all sin into a necessary stage in the\nevolution. But had not Drummond reason to say: \"There is one\ntheological word which has found its way lately into nearly all the\nnewer and finer literature of our country. It is not only _one_ of the\nwords of the literary world at present, it is perhaps _the_ word. Its\nreality, its certain influence, its universality, have at last been\nrecognized, and in spite of its theological name have forced it into a\nplace which nothing but its felt relation to the wider theology of\nhuman life could ever have earned for a religious word. That word, it\nneed scarcely be said, is sin.\"[80]\n\nContrast this modern sense of sin with the almost total lack of it\namong even so gifted a people of the ancient world as the Greeks, and\nfeel the significance of the phenomenon. But it is particularly to be\nnoted that this sense of sin in literature is largely due to a keener\nsocial conscience. In fact, if the social consciousness is not a\nthoroughly fraudulent phenomenon, it could hardly be otherwise; for\nthe social consciousness, in its very essence, is a sense of what is\ndue a person; and sin is always ultimately against a person, failure\nto be what one ought to be in some personal relation, including\nfinally all the relations of the kingdom of God. We simply cannot\ndeepen the sense of the meaning and value of personal relations, and\nnot deepen, at the same time, the sense of sin. The meaning of the\nGolden Rule, and so the sense of sin under it, deepens inevitably with\nevery step into the meaning of the person. If the one great\ncommandment is love, then the sin of which men need most of all to be\nconvicted is lack of love.\n\nThe self-tormenting and fanciful sins of some of our devotional books\nvery likely are less felt. But the very existence of the social\nconsciousness seems to be proof that there never was so much good,\nhonest, wholesome sense of real sin as to-day--such sin as Christ\nhimself recognizes in his own judgment test.\n\nIt may be that, in temporary absorption in the human relations, the\nrelation of all this to the All-Father may seem forgotten; even so, we\nmay well remember Christ's \"Ye did it unto me.\" But, in fact, we must\ngo much farther and say, The social consciousness can only be true to\nitself finally, as it goes on to see its acts in the light, most of\nall, of that single, personal relation which underlies all others. We\nhave already seen that the social consciousness requires for its own\njustification its grounding in the manifest trend of the living will\nof God. With this felt identification of the will of God with love for\nmen, men can still less shake off easily the conviction of sin.\n\nProbably, most religious men argue a diminishing sense of sin, because\nthey feel that less is made of those consequences of sin which have\nbeen usually connected with the future life. There may be real danger\nhere from shallow thinking; but here, too, the social consciousness\nhas only to be true to itself to be saved from any shallow estimate of\nthe consequences of sin here or hereafter. As the sin itself is\nalways, finally, in personal relations, so the most terrible results\nof sin, in this life and in all lives, are in personal relations. What\nit costs the man himself in cutting him off from the relations in\nwhich all largeness of life consists, what it costs those who love\nhim, what it costs God,--this alone is the true measure of sin. So\njudged, sin itself is feared as never before. Surely, Principal\nFairbairn is right in saying: \"And so even within Christendom, sin is\nnever so little feared as when hell most dominates the imagination; it\nneeds to be looked at as it affects God, to be understood and\nfeared.\"[81] But it is the inevitable result of the social\nconsciousness to bring us to the deepest conviction of all these\npersonal relations, and so to the deepest conviction of sin.\n\nAnother consideration deserves attention. We have a growing conviction\nthat our social ideal is personally realized only in Christ, and we\nhave given unequaled attention to that life and have such knowledge of\nit, in its detailed applications, as no preceding generation has ever\nhad. This simply means that we have both such a sense of our moral\ncalling, and are face to face with such a living standard, as must\nsteadily deepen in us a genuine sense of real sin, in our falling so\nfar short of the spirit of Christ.\n\nTheology needs, further, to make unmistakably clear, and to use the\nfact, that _this mutual influence of men holds for good_ as well as\nfor evil; that few greater lies have ever been told, than the\ninsinuation that only evil is contagious, the good not. And this\nconviction of the contagion of the good, of mutual influence for good,\nconcerns theology particularly in three ways, all of which may be\nregarded simply as illustrations or aspects of the one kingdom of God.\nWe are members one of another (1) in attainment of character, (2) in\npersonal relation to God, and (3) in confession of faith. And each of\nthese forms of mutual influence will need careful attention.\n\nIn considering separately here attainment of character and relation to\nGod, it is not meant for a moment to admit that separation of ethics\nand religion which has been already denied, but only to single out for\ndistinct treatment the one most important and fundamental relation of\nlife--relation to God. We are certainly never to forget that the\nindispensable condition of right relations to God, is that a man\nshould have been won into willingness to share God's own righteous\npurpose concerning men.\n\n\nIII. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN THE ATTAINMENT OF CHARACTER\n\nWe know no deeper law in the building of character, than that\nrighteous character comes through that association with the best in\nwhich there is mutual self-giving. The problem of character implies\nnot only a bare recognition of a man's moral freedom, but a sacred\nrespect at every point for his personality. If a man is ever to have\ncharacter at all, it must be absolutely his own; he must be won freely\ninto it. In this free winning to character, no association counts for\nits most that is not mutual. I become in character most certainly and\nrapidly like that man with whom I constantly am, to whose influence I\nmost fully surrender, and who gives himself most completely to me.\n\nWe may analyze the phenomenon psychologically, as, indeed, we have\nalready done in showing that a true personal relation to Christ\nnecessarily carries with it a true ethical life. And that which held\ntrue for religion cannot be false for theology, we may be sure. But,\nin any case, we always come back finally to the fact, that character\nis truly and inevitably contagious in an association in which there is\nmutual surrender. Character is caught, not taught. The inner strength\nof another life to which we surrender is, as Phillips Brooks somewhere\nsays, \"directly transmissible.\" I suspect that the ultimate\npsychological principle at work here is that of the impulsiveness of\nconsciousness. But, whether that be true or not, the witness to this\ncontagion is wide-spread among students of men. \"The greatest gift the\nhero leaves his race,\" one of our great novelists says, \"is to have\nbeen a hero.\" In almost identical language, a great ethical and\nphilosophical writer adds: \"The noblest workers of our world bequeath\nus nothing so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever\nso glorious, is historical and transient, the majesty of their spirit\nis essential and eternal.\"\n\nBut one might still think, here, only of an example. The other life,\nhowever, must be more to me than mere example. For the highest\nattainment in character I need the association of some highest one,\nwho will give himself to me unreservedly. Redemption to real\nrighteousness of life cannot be without cost to the redeemer. And it\nis a psychologist, facing the ultimate problem of will-strengthening,\nwho urges in words that might seem almost to look to Christ: \"The\nprophet has drunk more deeply than any one of the cup of bitterness;\nbut his countenance is so unshaken, and he speaks such mighty words of\ncheer, that his will becomes our will, and our life is kindled at his\nown.\"[82] It _is_ the one great certain road to character--as it is to\nappreciation of every value--to stay in the presence of the best, in\nself-surrender to it. No wonder Christ said, \"I am the Way.\"\n\n1. _The Application to the Problem of Redemption._--It is hardly\npossible to ignore this one great known law of character-making, which\nthe social consciousness so presses upon us, in any thinking that is\nfor a moment worth while concerning our redemption by Christ. And\nwhatever our point of view, this consideration ought to have weight\nwith us. Nay, must we not make it necessarily the very center of all\nour thought here? For all the realities in this problem of redeeming a\nman from sin to righteousness are intensely personal, ethical,\nspiritual. Now, are we to reach a deeper view of redemption, by\nturning away from the deepest ethical fact to the unethical? Do we so\nground our view the more securely? Is there something holier than the\nholy ethical will seen realized in Christ's life and death? For, if it\nis the will in his death by which we are sanctified,[83] there can be\nno sharp separation of the life and death. Must we not rather expect\nthat the clearest light, on the holiest in God and our personal\nrelation to him, will be thrown by the holiest we know in life, in our\nhuman personal relations?\n\nIs not the precise method of redemption, then, to no small degree,\ncleared for us right here, in this conviction of the social\nconsciousness of the contagion of the good in a self-surrendering\nassociation--the only solidarity of which we can be certain? Christ\nsaves us, in the only certain way we know that any man is ever saved\nto better living, through direct contagion of character, through his\nimmediate influence upon us. The power of the influence of a redeeming\nperson must depend upon two facts: the richness of the self that is\ngiven, and the depth of the giving. The supremely redeeming power must\nbe the giving of the richest self, unto the uttermost. God has not yet\ndone his best for men, until he gives himself in the fullest\nmanifestation which can be made through man to men, and gives to the\nuttermost, with no drawing back from any cost. Is it not because,\nafter all, back of all theories and even in spite of theories, men\nhave seen in the life and death of Christ just this eternal giving of\nGod himself, that they have been caught up into some sharing of the\nsame spirit, and so felt working directly and immediately upon them\nthe supremest redeeming power the world knows? The cross of Christ has\nbeen God's not only _saying_, \"I will help that child to conquer\nhimself, whatever it costs me,\" but God doing it, and perpetually\ndoing it. Not less than that must be the cost of a man's redemption.\n\nCharacter is directly transmissible in an association in which there\nis mutual self-giving. It is most easily so transmissible, only at its\nhighest, in its most perfect manifestation, in its completest\nself-giving at any cost.\n\nThe self-giving on the part of one trying to win another into\ncharacter must precede the self-giving of the sinner; for the sinner's\nown willingness to yield himself to the influence of the character of\nthe other must first of all be won. This initial winning of the\nco\u00f6perative will of the other is the heart of the whole battle. And\nhere the power relied on is not only the unconscious contagion and\nimitation of character that enlists a man's interest almost by\nsurprise, but also the mightiest influence men know in breaking down\nthe resisting will and winning men consciously and with final\nabandon--the influence of a patient, long-suffering, persistent,\nself-sacrificing love that cannot give the sinning one up.\n\nMost certainly, then, redemption cannot be without cost to the\nredeemer of men--not only that cost to the hero of the superior\nshowing of superior character in a superior task, but that other cost,\nindissolubly linked indeed with this, of reverently, patiently, to the\nbitter end, helping another to conquer himself--the inevitable\nsuffering of all redemptive endeavor for those whom one loves. This\ninvolves (1) suffering in contact with sin, (2) suffering in the\nrejection by those sinning, and most of all, (3) suffering in the sin\nitself of those one loves because one loves them--suffering which is\nthe more intense, the more one loves.\n\n2. _The Consequent Ethical and Spiritual Meaning of Substitution and\nPropitiation._--Can we go yet a step farther here? It may be fairly\ntaken for granted that where the church has strongly and persistently\nstood for certain modes of putting a doctrine--though the precise\nputting may be unfortunate--that in all probability there is there\nsome real and important truth after which the consciousness of the\nchurch is dimly feeling. Starting, now, from this same great law of\nthe contagion of character and the inevitable influence of an\nassociation in which there is mutual self-giving, is it not possible\nto show that there is a strict ethical and spiritual sense that we can\nunderstand, in which Christ's suffering may be truly called vicarious,\nand himself a substitute for us, and a propitiation?\n\nIt is, of course, not for a moment forgotten that, in Dr. Clarke's\nlanguage, \"a God who will himself provide a propitiation has no need\nof one in the sense which the word has ordinarily borne. Some richer\nand nobler meaning must be present if the word is appropriate to the\ncase.\"[84] But it is not likely that a purely ethical and spiritual\nview of the atonement, which sees the problem as a strictly personal\none--and this seems to the writer the only true position--can ever\nsucceed in the hearts of the great body of the membership of the\nchurches, if it cannot show, at the same time, that it is able in some\nreal way to take up into itself these thoughts of substitution and\npropitiation. The writer finds much of the old language about the\natonement as offensive to his moral sense as any man well can. But\nthat there is an absolutely universal human need for something like\nthat to which the old language of substitution and propitiation\nlooked, he cannot doubt. It seems to show itself in this, that no man\nwith real moral sense, probably, cares to put himself at the end of\nhis life, say, in the attitude of the Pharisee rather than in that of\nthe Publican. If one sets aside all spectacular elements in the\njudgment, and even denies altogether any great single final assize for\nall men, still he cannot avoid the thought of some judgment upon his\nlife. As Dr. Clarke says again: \"We are not our own masters in going\nout of this world; we go we know not whither. Yet our going is not\nwithout its just and holy method. Our place and lot in the life that\nis beyond must be determined righteously, in accordance with the life\nthat we have lived thus far, that the next stage in our existence may\nbe what it ought to be.\"[85]\n\nHowever, now, that judgment of God may be expressed, no man can hope\nto face the test proposed by Christ in the twenty-fifth of Matthew,\nstill less the test implied in Christ's own life, and feel that he has\n_already_ attained. He knows himself to be at best only a faulty\ngrowing child, with some real spirit of obedience in his heart. And it\nis particularly to be noted, that exactly that man must stand most\ndefinitely for the reality of some genuinely ethical judgment, who has\nmost insisted upon the necessarily ethical character of the religious\nlife. Moreover, the normal experience of the deepening Christian life\nis an increasing sense of sin. Upon this point, too, the social\nconsciousness is witness.\n\nWhat, now, makes it possible for a man to expect, in any sense, a\nfavorable judgment of God upon his life? If God makes any separation\nof men in the world to come, he certainly cannot divide them into\nperfect and imperfect men. Judged by any complete standard, all are\nimperfect. Or if, without separation, God in any sense, in the most\ninner way, passes judgment, how does approval fall upon any? And upon\nwhom does it fall? Must not every man who wishes to be clear and\nhonest with himself fairly face these questions?\n\nAnd Christ's own thought of God as Father must be our key here. And\nthe matter may well be counted worth a more careful analysis than it\noften gets. How does a father distinguish between what he calls an\nobedient and a disobedient child? Both are faulty. How in any fair\nsense may one be called obedient? To the earthly father, that child is\ncalled an obedient child, not who is deliberately setting his will\nagainst his father's with no intention to co\u00f6perate with the father's\npurpose for him, but whose loyal intention is to do the father's will,\nreally to co\u00f6perate with the father in the father's own purpose for\nthe child's life. When, now, this child is carried away by some gust\nof temptation and disobeys, and then returns in penitence to the\nfather, evidently viewing the sin, so far as his experience allows, as\nthe father views it, and heartily putting it away, the father, _either\nwith or without penalty_, restores the child to full personal relation\nto himself; and that is the vital point. And, though he neither judges\nthe past life as without failure, nor expects the future to be without\nfailure, he approves the child, as in a true sense obedient. He is an\napproved child.\n\nWhat is it that satisfies the father in such a case? Upon what does he\nrely in his hope for matured character in the child? What, in biblical\nlanguage, \"covers\" for the father the actual disobediences of the past\nand the certain disobediences of the future, and enables him in a\nsense to ignore both in his approval of the child? Certainly, the\npresent purpose of the child, the child's honest intention to\nco\u00f6perate with the father in the father's purpose for him. Yes; but as\ncertainly, it seems to the writer, _not that alone_. The father's hope\nfor his child's steady growth in righteousness depends not only on the\nchild's present intention, but much more upon the father's own\nintention never to give up in his attempt at any cost to help that\nchild to conquer himself.[86] The father may be said here in a true\nsense to propitiate himself; and his own fixed purpose has become a\npartial substitute for the wavering purpose of the child.\n\nAnd the child's full righteousness is seen, not merely in an attitude\nof immediate present obedience, but especially in his loyal acceptance\nof his filial relation--in his honest surrender to his father's\ninfluence. And the father can now say, Because my child accepts\nheartily his relation to me, and honestly throws himself open to it to\nlet it be to him all it can and work its own work in him, I may\napprove him; for this relation to me which he so takes has only to go\non, to work out its complete results in a matured character. In the\nhearty acceptance of this filial relation to me, there is contained\nthe promise of the end.\n\nJust this attitude exactly, and no other, it seems to the writer, God\ntakes toward men in his revelation in Christ. Christ is God's own\nshowing forth of himself. \"God was in Christ reconciling the world\nunto himself.\"[87] \"Propitiation,\" Beysclag truly says, \"is blotting\nout, making amends for sin in God's eyes. Now what can cover the sin\nof the world in God's eyes? Only a personality and a deed which\ncontain the power of actually delivering the world from its sin.\"[88]\n\nWe have seen, it may be hoped, just how God's self-revealing in Christ\ndoes have this actual power, and becomes, thus, a true propitiation in\nthe highest moral sense, in the only sense in which God can wish a\npropitiation, and in the only sense in which we can ever need a\npropitiation. Our final hope for that true salvation, which is the\nsharing of the life of God and the involved likeness of character with\nGod, is in God's own long-suffering, redeeming activity. Only as\n_that_ may be remembered, in connection with our surrender to it, may\nwe hope to stand approved before the judgment of God. We are not\njudged alone before the judgment of God. In a very real sense the\njudge himself stands with us. Not what God is able to believe about\nthis man thought of as standing alone, but what he may believe about\nthis man standing in a living, surrendering association with himself,\nis the ground of judgment. We may not separate here the work of God\nand the work of Christ, as the New Testament does not separate them.\nIn constant reliance upon the constant redeeming activity of the\nFather here and hereafter, we children go hopefully on our way.\n\nPut into the language of the blood covenant, where the blood has all\nits significance as life--the giving of life, the sharing of life, the\nclosest and most indissoluble union of lives--this is to say, there is\nno atonement, no reconciliation, no remission of sins, no\nforgiveness--and these are all essentially identical terms--without\nshedding of blood, that is, without complete giving of life on both\nsides, Christ giving himself not only _for_ us in seeking us out, but\n_to_ us in complete reconciliation and renewal of life. It means that\nonly God, the very life of God, sharing God's life, can really save\none from his sins. God must pour his life into one, and he does, in\nChrist.\n\nThis seems to be the heart of the whole matter; but certain\nconsiderations may be still added, as indicating how far a purely\nethical and spiritual view of the atonement may go, in meeting the\nhuman need expressed in these older terms of substitution and\npropitiation.\n\nThere must be a wrath of God against wilful sin, a complete\ndisapproval of it, and all the more because God loves the sinner. God\nis a consuming fire for sin in us, because he loves us. That wrath\ncannot be propitiated, that disapproval cannot be satisfied, in any\neffective way, so long as the sin continues. The punishment of the sin\nin its inevitable consequences, will go on in the very fidelity of\nGod. But for any real satisfaction of God, the sin itself must cease,\nand there must be assurance of righteousness to come. The sinner must\ncome to share God's hatred of the sin and God's positive purpose of\nlove. Hence the expiation of the sin, the propitiation of the wrath of\nGod, the satisfaction of God--so far as these terms still have\nmeaning, and so far as they express Christ's work--consist (1) in\nwinning men to repentance, to sharing God's hatred of their sin, (2)\nin helping men to a real power against sin, and (3) in the assurance\nof perfecting righteousness which is contained in the relation to God\nhonestly accepted by men. When, now, the unfilial spirit is thus\nchanged into a completely filial spirit--through the fullest\nacceptance by the child of the father's purpose for him, and through\nthe child's throwing himself completely open to the influence of the\nfather--the personal relation _is_ thereby inevitably changed,\npersonal reconciliation is achieved. It is impossible to think it\notherwise. And so the chief pain in the previous relation is done away\nboth for God and man; though the punishment, in the consequences of\nsin in other respects, is not thereby set aside.\n\nBut, further, so far now as the power of this new personal relation to\nGod in Christ begins actively to counteract the consequences of sin in\nus, as it will assuredly do, God's work in Christ becomes a direct\nsubstitute for that punishment of us that would else inevitably\nfollow. And yet the process is wholly ethical; for the results of\nrighteousness can actually occur in us, only in so far as we come into\nharmony with Christ's purpose for us.\n\nEven so far, we may believe, does the social consciousness, in its\nemphasis upon the mutual influence of persons go, in leading us into\nthe secret of the attainment of character--into the heart of God's\nredemption of men.\n\n\nIV. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN OUR PERSONAL RELATION TO GOD\n\nWhat, now, in the second place, does the mutual influence of men for\ngood mean for theology in the individual relation to God? Here it may\nbe said at once, that faith is as directly contagious as character.\n\n1. _In Coming into the Kingdom._--We are introduced through others\ninto all spheres of value, including friendship even with God. In the\natmosphere of those who already feel the value, our interest is\naroused; we find it possible at least to take those initial steps of a\ndawning attention, which give the value opportunity to make its own\nimpression upon us, and bring us to an appreciation, to a faith of our\nown. Only so is that most difficult of all tasks in the redemption of\na man--that first stirring of a new appetite, a new desire, a new\naspiration, a new ideal--accomplished.\n\nWe are members one of another here to an extent that deserves ever\nfresh emphasis. We cannot too often say to ourselves, Had it not been\nthat there were those who actually entered into the meaning of the\nrevelation of God in Christ--who, in John's language, \"beheld his\nglory\"--the record of that revelation never could have come down to\nus. Christianity must have perished at its birth. \"Hence,\" in the\nvital language of Herrmann, \"the picture of his inner life could be\npreserved in his church or 'fellowship' alone. But, further, this\npicture so preserved can be understood only when we meet with men on\nwhom it has wrought its effect. We need communion with Christians in\norder that, from the picture of Jesus which his Brotherhood has\npreserved, there may shine forth that inner life which is the real\nheart of it. It is only when we see its effects, that our eyes are\nopened to its reality so that we may thereby experience the same\neffect. Thus we never apprehend the most important element in the\nhistorical appearance of Jesus until his people make us feel it. The\ntestimony of the New Testament concerning Jesus is the work of his\nchurch, and its exposition is the work of the church, through the life\nwhich that church develops and gains for itself out of this treasure\nwhich it possesses.\"[89]\n\nThe Christian is no Melchizedek, then, without father or mother; he\ncomes into life in a community of life, and usually, moreover, through\nthe personal touch of some other individual life. It is the one primal\nlaw, of life through life.\n\n2. _In Fellowship within the Kingdom._--And not only in coming into\nthe kingdom, but also within the religious fellowship of the kingdom,\nwe are emphatically members one of another. In bringing us into that\nlove which is God's own life, God evidently has no intention of\nallowing us to cut ourselves off from our brethren, to climb up to\nheaven by some little individual ladder of our own. That humility or\nopen-mindedness, which constitutes the first beatitude and the initial\nstep into the kingdom, and that self-sacrificing love, which\nconstitutes the last beatitude and the crown of the Christian life,\nare both possible and cultivable only in personal relations to others.\nNo man ever got them alone. And, for this very reason, in the\ndiscussion of the religious life, we found the New Testament guarding\nmost carefully against all over-estimation of marvelous experiences as\nsuch. For these tended to make a man feel that he had such an\nindividual ladder of his own to heaven, and had no need, consequently,\nof his brethren; and so led him into the very reverse of the\nfundamental Christian qualities--into unteachableness instead of\nhumility and open-mindedness, and into censoriousness instead of love.\nThat objective attitude which is essential in all character and work\nand happiness, cannot be unimportant in our specifically religious\nlife.\n\nEven in this most individual relation to God, then, men's outlook is\nvaried and but partial. We need to share, and can share, one another's\nvisions. The meaning of the many-sidedness of even a great human\npersonality gets home to us only so--through the various impressions\ngained by different men. Much more can God be revealed to us, even\napproximately, only so. The great and surpassing value of the New\nTestament lies exactly herein, that it gives the varied impressions\nupon the first Christian generation of God's supreme revelation--the\nmost important individual reflections of Christ. The New Testament\ncomes to stand, thus, in no merely external and mechanically\nauthoritative relation to the life and faith of the church, but in the\nmost interior and vital relation. And Bible study gets a new\nsignificance for us, as we see it, as at one and the same time our\nchief way to our own vision of God's actual, concrete self-revelation,\nand our deliverance from our merely subjective dreaming. We come to\nshare in some living way the vision of these others who have seen most\ndirectly and most largely.\n\n3. _In Intercessory Prayer._--One particular application to our\nreligious life, of this conviction of the social consciousness of our\nmutual influence, seems worthy of mention--its bearing upon\nintercessory prayer. Few other things in religion, one may suspect,\nseem less real to modern men. Can we ground the matter a little more\ndeeply for ourselves, and give it reality, by showing its close\nconnection with this deep-rooted conviction of the social\nconsciousness?\n\nWe have already seen,[90] if character and love are to be realities to\nus, if the world is to be a real training-ground for moral character,\nand not a mere play-world--a nursery continually set to rights from\nwithout, that we must all be most closely knit together; that our\nchoices must have effects in the lives of others; that we must be\nbound up in one bundle of life. And we do affect one another's lives\nin a thousand ways. In manifold directions we condition the happiness\nand temptations of one another. The unspoken mood of another, an\nexpression of countenance, a tone, an emphasis, may affect our whole\nday.\n\nNow, if the spiritual world is real at all, it is to be counted upon.\nApparently, there is such a thing, for example, as a spiritual\natmosphere in an audience--not, it may well be supposed, a magical\nmatter, but really determined by the tone of the minds composing the\naudience. The actual mood of the hearers and of the speaker makes a\ndifference. Results, great and important, are so changed often quite\nunconsciously. It may well be that God is the medium in all this. The\nattitude of the auditors is like unconscious, silent praying to\nGod--the praying of their life, of their spirit.\n\nBut, whether one cares to look at this special case in such a way or\nnot, we are, in any event, in our spiritual lives in the deepest way\nmembers one of another. Our spiritual condition inevitably affects\nothers. We cannot sow to the flesh and reap life anywhere, in\nourselves or in others. This is particularly true, of course, of those\nto whom we are bound in the closest life relations. That this is\nabsolutely true in normal personal relations, when we are in the\npresence of our friends, all of us fully believe. The question simply\nis, May this law of mutual influence hold of those bound up with our\nlives even when they are distant from us or estranged? In giving the\nprivilege of intercessory prayer, it may well be believed, God simply\nallows us to be, even then, what we are always so fully under other\ncircumstances--an influence upon them, a condition of the good and\ngrowth of others. _He simply allows the regular law of the spiritual\nand moral world to hold without exception._ We are still, though\ndistant or estranged, members one of another. It would be a very\nhuman, defective, faulty God, who could not put us thus in touch with\nour loved ones everywhere. But this is possible through _him_, and\ntherefore in prayer, and under strictly ethical and spiritual\nconditions, and not as a matter of mere whimsical and wilful will on\nour part, and it opens no door to magical superstition. Is not the\nrecognition of the place and value of intercessory prayer, then, an\nonly just extension of the prime conviction of the social\nconsciousness?\n\n\nV. MUTUAL INFLUENCE FOR GOOD IN CONFESSIONS OF FAITH\n\nTheology has, once more, in the third place, to recognize the\nimportance of mutual influence for good in confession of faith, in\ncreeds. When, to-day, we seek the common grounds of belief for\nChristian thinkers, so far as the social consciousness really moves\nus, we approach the problem in a way somewhat different from that of\nprevious generations. We do not now seek to elaborate a second, modern\nWestminster confession; nor do we seek a mere average of Christian\nideas that in reality expresses no one's whole living thought. Still\nless is there sought the barest minimum of Christian belief. Rather,\nin harmony with the social consciousness, we seek a unity that is\norganic. Our age, therefore, must recognize that, in the confession of\nits faith as in all else, we are genuinely members one of another. The\nunity sought not only tolerates differences, but welcomes and\njustifies them, as themselves helps to a deeper unity. It believes in\nequality, but not in identity.\n\nIt is true that Christianity looks everywhere to life; and we may be\nsure that any statement of Christian doctrine that does not obviously\nbear on living is still inadequate and incorrect. It is true that we\ndo well to emphasize the strictly religious and practical purpose of\nthe Bible; that the Bible is interested in both nature and history so\nfar and only so far as either reveals God and inspires to godly\nliving. It is true that in all Christian thinking Christ is our\nultimate appeal.\n\nBut, on the other hand, we must not confuse the issue. We cannot\nexpect agreement in detailed intellectual statements even with fullest\nloyalty to Christ, and the most earnest desire after truth. To each\nhis own message. Nor can we confine, nor is it desirable to confine,\nexpressions of Christian faith to the merely practical side. We need\nto seek to _understand_ the meaning of our Christian experience, not\nonly for the sake of our intellectual peace, but also for the sake of\ndeepening our Christian experience itself. Now, it is here contended\nthat in our confessions of Christian faith we need one another, and\nthat complete uniformity of belief and statement is both impossible\nand undesirable.\n\n1. _Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Impossible._--It is\nimpossible, for, in the first place, it is difficult, in any case, to\ntell our real inner creed. Some of its most important articles are\nquite certain to be implicit and unconfessed, even to ourselves. The\nonly important creed, in the case of the individual, is that which\nfinds its expression in life. There are assumptions implied in deeds\nand spirit; and the spirit of a man throws more light on his real\ncreed than his formal statements do. His doctrines may be radical, his\nspirit thoroughly constructive, or _vice versa_. If all thought tends\nto pass into act, as modern psychology insists, we have a right to\nurge that those articles of a man's creed which find expression in\nliving, are for him the really important articles. The will has a\ncreed, as well as the intellect, and the real creed is the creed of\nlife rather than of lips; it is wrought out, rather than thought out.\nAnd this real, inner, living creed probably no man can state with\naccuracy even in his own case. And if he is ever able even\napproximately to do so, it will be at the end, rather than at the\nbeginning, of his life's work and experience.\n\nMoreover, complete uniformity of belief and statement is impossible,\nfor, even exactly the same words cannot mean the same to different\nindividuals, for they are interpreted out of a different experience;\nthey cannot mean precisely the same thing, even to the same\nindividual, at different times, for his interpreting experience, too,\nis a changing thing. We need sometimes to remind ourselves that there\nis never any literal transfer of thought from mind to mind, still less\nfrom statement to mind; all thinking of even the most passive kind has\nan element of creation in it, for terms must be interpreted, and the\ninterpretation is inevitably limited by previous experience.\nSabatier[91] is quite right, therefore, in asserting that credal\nstatements must change their meaning just as words change. But it is\nto be noted that this principle means not only that unalterable\ndoctrine, in this sense, is impossible between the generations; but\nalso that identical doctrine is impossible in the same generation.\n\nOut of the different experiences, too, grow the different points of\nview and the different emphases. And these different points of view,\nand the different distribution of emphasis, give the same creed very\ndifferent meanings for different men. It is as impossible to avoid\nthis, as it is to avoid change and individuality. It is true of a\nman's creed as of his environment, that the only effective portions\nare those to which he attends--those which he emphasizes, not those to\nwhich he gives a bare assent; and this varying attention and emphasis\ncannot be the same in different individuals. The only logical outcome\nof a thorough-going attempt to reach an identical creed is the church\nof one member.\n\n2. _Complete Uniformity of Belief and Statement Undesirable._--But\ncomplete uniformity of belief and statement is not only impossible; it\nis undesirable. For, in the first place, it is only by these differing\nbut supplementary finite expressions that we can approximate to the\ninfinite truth. Like Leibnitz's mirrors in the market-place, it is\nonly by combining the points of view of all that a complete\nrepresentation is possible. We need one another here, as elsewhere; we\nneed the fellowship of the church, and of the whole church; the\nstrictly individual view must be fragmentary. Our message needs the\nsupplement of the messages of others; through each member God has\nsomething unique to say. They without us, we without them, are not to\nbe made perfect. We need to share, in such measure as is possible, the\nexperiences of others; but this is possible only through vital\ncontact.\n\nMoreover, we are not to forget how truth comes--not by surrender of\nconvictions, not by the silence of each, but by each standing\nearnestly for the truth which is given to him, in a union of\nconviction and charity. For only he who has convictions can be\ntolerant, as only he who has fears can be courageous.\n\nOnce more, we cannot and must not simply repeat each other. Nothing is\nso fatal to spiritual life as dishonesty. To attempt an identical\ncreed involves something of such untrue repetition of the experience\nof others. For, as Herrmann has said, doctrines are an expression of\nlife _already present_, and are of value only so; they are not\nthemselves a condition of life. If the doctrines we profess are not\nthe honest expression of a real life in us, they are a hindrance, not\na help. \"Conscious untruth tends to drive from Christ.\"\n\nFor every one of these reasons, now, it is positively undesirable to\nforbid varying theories or to check the varied expressions of\nChristian faith, whether in accordance or not with certain standard\nformulas. A growing life requires a growing expression, which must be\njustified by its history, not dogmatically by reference to some\nsupposed fixed standard of doctrine in the past. The very meaning and\nhealth of Christian fellowship demand that we should welcome and\nencourage the honest expression of the varied manifestations of the\nOne Spirit, that we may be the more certain to get the whole truth,\nthe whole life which God intends. We are members one of another, in\ndoctrine as in life.\n\nIt becomes increasingly clear, thus, where the real Christian unity\nis, and where the common grounds of Christian belief must be sought.\nThe real unity of Christians is in their common life, in the common\nexperience, in the possession of the common personal self-revelation\nof God in Christ, in the inworking of the One Spirit. It is the\nmeaning of this one central Christian experience, which we strive to\nexpress in our doctrinal statements. Our _expressions_ must vary; the\nlife, the personal relation to God, is one. The best analogy we have\nof the case lies in what the same great friend means to different\npersons. Our creeds are at best poor and partial expressions of the\nmeaning for us of the divine friendship, of God's self-revelation to\nus. It is, then, precisely in our Christian experience and in that\npersonal relation to God revealed in Christ which makes a man a\nChristian at all, that all the common grounds of Christian belief lie.\n\nThe solution of Christian unity here, that is, is not by increasing\nabstraction, but by frank concreteness; not by false simplicity, but\nby living fullness; not by relation to propositions, but by relation\nto facts; not by emphasis on natural religion, but by emphasis on\nhistorical religion; not by bringing nature into prominence, but human\nnature; not by relation to things, but by relation to persons, to the\none great world fact, the one person, to Christ. \"I am the Way.\" The\nChristian faith is faith in a person; the Christian confession of\nfaith is confession of Christ. And if we are really in earnest with\nthis word Christian, we already have our basis of unity in our\npersonal relation to Christ, our common Lord. But that personal\nrelation to God in Christ is always more than a credal statement _can_\nexpress, though we may never cease to attempt such expression; and for\nthe sake of the larger realization, by ourselves and by the church, of\nthe meaning of the personal relation to Christ, we must welcome every\nhonest expression of his Christian life by another. Altogether, we\nshall at best but dimly shadow forth its full meaning.\n\nAnd such a concrete relation to the personal Christ is a far better\ntest of genuine Christian faith than any creed, whether more or less\nelaborate, since in the personal relation character inevitably comes\nout; and any test that allows even for the moment the ignoring of the\nethical, cannot remain even intellectually adequate, for Christian\ndoctrine looks always and certainly to life. Even if one is thinking\n_only_ of the correct intellectual expression of the common Christian\nlife--the maintenance of orthodoxy, so far as that is possible to\nus--it should be remembered that the most conservative of all\ninfluences is love of a person, and, by no means, subscription to a\nset of propositions. Would Christ so think? Would he so speak?--these\nare questions far more certain to keep Christian _thinking_ true, than\nany intellectual test of man's devising.\n\nWe do not expect, therefore, we do not seek, any common grounds of\nbelief for Christian thinkers, other than are involved in the simple\nfact that we are Christians at all, in the common recognition of the\nrevelation of God in Christ--of the Lordship of Christ. We confess\nChrist. For, \"no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.\"\nAnd \"other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, which\nis Jesus Christ.\"\n\nNow, in this common confession, it is here especially maintained, we\nare, as everywhere, \"members one of another\" and need one another; and\nthe unity we seek, therefore, is not the unity of identical credal\nstatement--which can only make us isolated atoms not necessary to one\nanother--but the deeper and larger organic unity of the richly varying\nmanifestations of the common life in Christ. We may come, through the\nwitness of another, to an appreciation of Christ which is really our\nown, but to which we should not have come if the other had not spoken.\nMen do mutually influence one another for good, in their confessions\nof Christian faith.\n\n\nVI. THE CONSEQUENT IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH\n\nIn this recognition of the vital and essential importance of mutual\ninfluence in the attainment of character, in the individual relation\nto God, and in creed, theology is brought to a new sense of the\nsignificance of the doctrine of the church. On the one hand, it cannot\nderive its importance from having to do with an unalterably fixed and\ninfallibly organized external authority; and, on the other hand, it\ncan be no longer an unimportant addendum concerned only with methods\nof organization and government, and with ecclesiastical ordinances and\nprocedure. So far as the social consciousness has influence upon\ntheology at this point, theology must see that the doctrine of the\nchurch is the doctrine of that priceless, living, personal fellowship,\nin which alone Christian character, Christian faith, and Christian\nconfession can arise and can continue. The doctrine of the church\nbecomes thus the doctrine of the very life and growth of Christianity\nin the world. It is the doctrine of the real kingdom of God, Christ's\nown great central theme.\n\n[78] Cf. above, pp. 35 ff.\n\n[79] _The Elements of Sociology_, pp. 119, 120, 121.\n\n[80] _The Ideal Life_, p. 149.\n\n[81] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 455.\n\n[82] James, _Psychology_, Vol. II, p. 579.\n\n[83] Cf. Hebrews 10:10.\n\n[84] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 335.\n\n[85] _Op. cit._, p. 459.\n\n[86] Cf. Romans 8:26-39.\n\n[87] II Corinthians 5:19.\n\n[88] _The Theology of the New Testament_, Vol. II, p. 448.\n\n[89] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 61; cf. p. 87.\n\n[90] Cf. above, p. 32.\n\n[91] _The Vitality of Christian Dogmas and their Power of Evolution._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\n_THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE VALUE AND SACREDNESS OF\nTHE PERSON UPON THEOLOGY_\n\n\nIn the discussion of the influence of the social consciousness upon\ntheological doctrine, we turn now to ask concerning the third element\nof the social consciousness, How does the deepening sense of the value\nand sacredness of the person affect theology?\n\nAnd with this sense of the value and sacredness of the person, we may\nwell include, so far as the influence upon theology is concerned, the\nremaining elements of the social consciousness--the deepening sense of\nobligation, and of love. For, as we have already seen, the sense of\nobligation and of love follow so inevitably from a deep sense of the\nvalue and sacredness of the person, that it would be a needless\nrefinement, probably, to try to analyze out their separate influence\nupon theological thinking. We should find them all leading us to\nessentially the same great emphases.\n\nWhen, now, through the social consciousness, the personal has become\nthe supreme value for us, and regard for it our eternal motive and\ngoal, we cannot fail to demand that theology give a real personality\nto God and man--a consciousness marked, in Professor Howison's\nlanguage, with \"that recognition and reverence of the personal\ninitiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the test of\nthe true person.\"[92]\n\n\nI. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN MAN\n\nIn the first place, the social sense of the value and sacredness of\nthe person will emphasize the full personality of man.\n\n1. _Man's Personal Separateness from God._--The sense of the value of\nthe person cannot admit for a moment such a one-sided emphasis upon a\nuniversal cosmic evolution, or upon the immanence of God, as should\nmake impossible a true personality in man. It seeks, in its view of\nboth God and man, a really \"_personal_ idealism.\" It does not forget,\nbut earnestly asserts, the dependence of all other spirits upon God;\nand, consequently, looks for no metaphysical separateness in this\nsense from God. But a genuine recognition of the personality of man\ndoes require that man be conceived as separate from God in just this\nsense: (1) that he has a clear self-consciousness of his own, and (2)\nthat he has real moral initiative, which makes his volition truly his\nown. These two factors constitute all of separateness that need be\ndemanded for man. Possessing these, he is \"outside of God\" in the only\nsense in which a \"personal idealism\" feels concerned to assert\nseparateness. But for these factors it is concerned; for without them,\nit believes, no truly ideal view, no moral world, no religious life,\nare possible.\n\n2. _Emphasis Upon Man's Moral Initiative._--In particular, the\napplication of the sense of the value and sacredness of the person in\ntheology, means the emphatic recognition of the moral initiative of\nman--of the possession of a real will of his own. The whole social\nconsciousness, especially in this third element of it, rests upon the\nassumption that man has worth, as a being capable of character as well\nas of happiness, and so deserves in some worthy sense to be called a\nchild of God. If the social consciousness is, as we have seen, with\nany fairness to be called the recognition of the fully personal,[93]\nthis reverence for the personal initiative of men cannot be lacking in\nit. Its influence upon theology at this point, therefore, is hardly to\nbe doubted.\n\nAnd theology itself is vitally concerned. For the whole possibility of\nthe conceptions of government and providence requires this. These\nterms are words without meaning, having absolutely no place in\ntheology or philosophy, if man has no moral initiative. Nor should it\nescape our notice, that we strike at the very root of all possible\nreverence for God, if we deny a real initiative to man. We have no\npossible philosophic explanation of either sin or error, consistent\nwith any real reverence for God, if a true human will is denied.[94]\nIn Professor Bowne's vigorous language: In a system of necessity\n\"every thought, belief, conviction, whether truth or superstition,\narises with equal necessity with every other.... On this plane of\nnecessary effect the actual is all, and the ideal distinctions of true\nand false have as little meaning as they would have on the plane of\nmechanical forces.... The only escape from the overthrow of reason\ninvolved in the fact of error lies in the assumption of freedom.\"\nMoreover, if real human initiative is denied to men, we conceive God\nas having really less respect for persons in his dealing with them,\nthan the most elementary ethics requires of men in their relations to\none another. A one-sided doctrine of immanence, thus, degrades both\nman and God. It degrades man, in denying to him a true personality,\nand so making him simply a thing. It degrades God, in making him the\nreal responsible cause of all sin and error, and in making him treat\npossible persons as things. The influence of the social consciousness,\nwhich leads us to measure the moral growth of a man and of a\ncivilization by the deepening sense of reverence for the person, is\nfairly decisive at this point. It _must_ see in God the most absolute\nguarding of man's personality, and especially of his moral initiative.\n\n3. _Man, a Child of God._--The Christian faith, that man is a child of\nGod, is a faithful expression of the insistence of the social\nconsciousness upon the recognition of the full personality of man. It\nexpresses both man's entire dependence upon God for his being and\nmaintenance, and at the same time his infinite value and sacredness as\na spirit made in the image of God, capable of indefinite progress, and\ncapable of personal relation to God. It voices thus Christianity's\ncharacteristic \"humbly-proud\" conception of man--humble in view of the\neternal and infinite plans of God; proud, as \"called to an\nimperishable work in the world.\" It is, indeed, but a concrete\nstatement of that faith in love at the heart of things, and in the\nall-embracing plan of a faithful God, which we found required, if the\nsocial consciousness itself was to have any justification.[95]\n\n\nII. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN CHRIST\n\nIn the second place, under this impulse of the sense of the value and\nsacredness of the person, theology is likely to insist on the\nrecognition of the personal in the conception of Christ.\n\n1. _Christ a Personal Revelation of God._--This recognition of the\npersonal in Christ will mean, first, that we are to conceive Christ as\na _personal_ revelation of God, rather than as containing in himself a\ndivine substance.[96] It cannot forget, that if God is a person, and\nmen are persons, the adequate self-revelation of God to men can be\nmade only in a truly personal life; and that men need above all, in\ntheir relation to God, some manifestation of his ethical will, and\nthis can be shown only in the character of a person. A merely\nmetaphysical conception of the divinity of Christ in terms of\nsubstance or essence, as these are commonly thought, must, therefore,\nwholly fail to satisfy. We must be able to recognize and bow before\nthe personal will of the personal God revealed in Christ, if we are\nreally to find God through him. A strong sense of the personal, then,\nsuch as the social consciousness evinces, must see in Christ, above\nall, a personal revelation of a person.\n\n2. _Emphasizing the Moral and Spiritual in Asserting the Supremacy of\nChrist._--This implies that the dominant sense of the value and\nsacredness of the person will certainly tend to bring into prominence\nthe moral and spiritual in asserting the supremacy of Christ, rather\nthan the metaphysical or the simply miraculous. So far as these latter\ncome into its representation at all, they will follow rather than\nprecede, and be accepted because of the moral and spiritual, or as\nsimply working hypotheses enabling us to bring into a thought-unity\nwhat we have to recognize in the moral and spiritual realm. If one\nfaces the matter fully and frankly, is it not plain that Christians of\nall shades of belief are increasingly finding the real reason for\ntheir faith in Christ in his moral and spiritual supremacy? Many may\nchoose to _express_ their faith in him, when once reached, in terms of\nthe miraculous or metaphysical; but the miraculous and the\nmetaphysical are not the primary _reasons_ for their faith. It is the\ninner spirit of Christ himself which really masters us and calls out\nour confident faith and our eager submission. And it is only when we\nhave already gotten this sense of the stupendousness of his\npersonality, that the so-called miraculous in his life becomes to our\nthought natural and fitting, and we are driven to think him standing\nin some unique relation to God and so requiring to be conceived in\nunique metaphysical terms.\n\nIt is easy, no doubt, to indulge in a false polemic against the\nmiraculous and metaphysical. One of the surest bits of autobiography\nwe have from Christ, the narrative of the temptations, implies, as\nSanday has acutely pointed out,[97] the clear consciousness on the\npart of Christ of the possession of what we call supernatural powers.\nIt is a far less simple problem to rid the gospels of the miraculous\nelement, than our age, with its greatly exaggerated estimate of the\nmathematico-mechanical view of the world, is likely to think. The\nso-called miraculous in connection with Christ is not to be\nimpatiently and dogmatically set aside.[98] So, too, the demand of\nthought, that we form finally some metaphysical conception of the\ngreat personality which we meet in Christ cannot be denied as wholly\nillegitimate. All this is to be freely granted and asserted.\n\nBut it is of the greatest importance for Christian thought, that it\nstill keep Christ's own absolute subordination of both the miraculous\nand metaphysical to the moral and the spiritual. The same narrative of\nthe temptation, that so clearly implies supernatural powers in Christ,\nhas its whole point in Christ's answering determination absolutely to\nsubordinate these supernatural powers to moral and spiritual ends. His\nwhole ministry evinces the greatest pains upon this point. And he\nevidently thinks a theory of his metaphysical relation to God (as\nordinarily conceived) of so little vital importance that even such\nslight hints as we get of it in the New Testament apparently do not\ncome from him at all. The present tendency, therefore, naturally\ndemanded by the social consciousness, to emphasize the moral and\nspiritual in Christ in asserting his supremacy, is quite in harmony\nwith Christ's own insistence. He will be followed for what he is in\nhimself.\n\nThe real supremacy of Christ, his truest divinity, we may be sure,\ncomes out for our time in those statements which we are able to make\nconcerning his inner spirit. Here, and here only, the real power of\nhis personality gets hold upon us. What are these grounds of the\nsupremacy of Christ? How is it that we come to God through him?\n\n3. _The Moral and Spiritual Grounds of the Supremacy of\nChrist._[99]--(1) In the first place, _Jesus Christ is the greatest in\nthe greatest sphere_, that of the moral and spiritual; and this, by\ncommon consent of all men. Both the depth and the consensus of\nconviction concerning Christ are profoundly significant. If our earth\nhas ever seen one of whom it could be truly said, He is a moral and\nspiritual authority, pre\u00ebminently the one great authority in this\ngreatest sphere,--that person is Jesus Christ. Seeing the moral\nproblem more broadly than any other ever saw it, tracing the motives\nof life more deeply than any other ever traced them, applying those\nprinciples of the life which he sees with a tact and delicacy and\nskill that no other ever approached, speaking with an authority in\nthis moral and spiritual sphere to which no other can for a moment lay\nclaim,--this man is easily the greatest in the greatest sphere.\n\nIt is, perhaps, to say only the same thing in a little different way,\nwhen one says with Fairbairn, that Christ is transcendent among\nfounders of religion, \"and to be transcendent here is to be\ntranscendent everywhere, for religion is the supreme factor in the\norganizing and the regulating of our personal and collective\nlife.\"[100] The present age is, more than any other, the age of the\nscientific study of religion. The last forty years, indeed, have seen\nsuch attention to the study of comparative religion as the world never\nsaw before. What has been the outcome of that study? To make the\nrelative position of Jesus among the founders of religion lower? I do\nnot so understand it. No, the outcome is such that it is a manifestly\ninadequate statement to say, that he is transcendent among the\nfounders of religion. The very most that we may hope to say about the\nfounder of any other religion is, that in some single particular at a\nlong distance he can be brought into comparison with Jesus. But let\none think for a moment what it means for a man to be a founder of\nreligion. We talk of leadership. Do we know what a founder of religion\ndoes? He makes the light, in which millions of men look upon all the\nevents of their life, in which they see the past of the world's\nhistory, in which they look forward to the entire future. The very\nmood and atmosphere of men's lives are determined by these founders of\nreligion; and among these pre\u00ebminent leaders, Jesus, beyond all\nmistake, is transcendent.\n\nLet the nature of his kingdom, too, be his witness. He calmly aims to\nfound a kingdom that shall be spiritual, universal, eternal. One must\nface the fact that this man of Nazareth in Syrian Galilee, purposes in\ncoolness of deliberation to found a kingdom that shall be absolutely\nspiritual, that shall make no appeal to any of the lower elements of\nman; one must see that this man, in those temptations through which he\npassed concerning the form of his work, deliberately set aside the\nkingdom by bread, the kingdom by marvel and ecstasy, and the kingdom\nby force, and purposed to found a kingdom solely upon moral and\nspiritual forces. And observe that he confidently expects this kingdom\nto be universal--appealing to men of all races and of all times, and\nto be eternal--still standing when all else shall have passed away.\nAnd upon his belief in this character of his kingdom he stakes his\nlife, and calmly gives to himself as the goal of his life the\nestablishment of just such a kingdom; and remains to the end confident\nof his success. The mere vitality of will in such a purpose is hard to\ntake in, and alone may well give us pause.\n\nAnd because he is the greatest in the greatest sphere, transcendent\namong founders of religion, the founder of a kingdom spiritual,\nuniversal, and eternal, he becomes for us a \"personalized conscience,\"\na spiritual, moral authority for us even beyond our own conscience--an\nauthority that grows upon us with our growth, and submission to which\nis earth's highest moral test.\n\n(2) And there must be added to this first proposition, that Jesus is\nthe greatest in the greatest sphere, a second: _He alone is the\nsinless and impenitent one._ And it is to be noticed that it is this\nman who sees more clearly than any other the moral and spiritual, who\nknows, as no other does, what character is and what moral life\nmeans,--it is he, who claims to be the sinless one. No other ever\nintelligently made this claim; for no other was it ever intelligently\nmade. The words of the great historian Ranke seem to us to be simple\ntruth when he says: \"More guiltless and more powerful, more exalted\nand more holy has naught ever been on earth than his conduct, his\nlife, and his death. The human race knows nothing that could be\nbrought even afar off into comparison with it.\" Only such an one could\nintelligently make for himself the claim of sinlessness. And for no\nother was this claim of sinlessness ever intelligently made. Men know\neach other too well to make it for others when moral consciousness has\nfully awakened. But he fights his battle in the wilderness, and there\nis no record of failure so far as he himself can see it, and none that\ndisciple ever ascribed.\n\nAnd this claim of sinlessness for Christ is to be urged, not so much\nbecause of any special statements by Christ as because of that\nremarkable fact to which Dr. Bushnell has called attention,--his\nimpenitence. Jesus alone among all good men is a man of \"impenitent\npiety;\" and by this he is marked off absolutely from every other good\nman. What happens in the life of any other good man is this: that, as\nhe goes forward, the sense of sin grows upon him, the ideal rises\nbefore him and he feels increasingly that his own life is inferior to\nit. Of Jesus this is not true. He shows no sign of consciousness of\nfailure. There is no evidence that he feels that he has fallen short\nin any degree. He is absolutely without that universal characteristic\nof all other good men, absolutely without penitence. Contrast him for\na moment with the man, who perhaps all would agree was the greatest of\nall his disciples, the man to whose devotion there seems to be no\nlimit--the Apostle Paul; and notice, that years after his persecution\nof the church and of the cause of Jesus, with growing sense of what\nJesus is, and of his own inexhaustible debt to him, there comes over\nhim with increasing, not lessening, power the sense of his sin, and he\nwrites to the Ephesians, \"Unto me, who am less than the least of all\nsaints, was this grace given me that I might preach unto the Gentiles\nthe unsearchable riches of Christ;\" and in one of the very last\nletters that comes down to us from him, says again, \"Faithful is the\nsaying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the\nworld to save sinners; of whom I am chief.\" What evidence have we that\nChrist ever felt in the slightest degree such penitence?\n\n(3) But more than this is true. _With the highest ideal, Jesus not\nonly does not consciously fall short of it, but consciously rises up\nto it_, and, as Herrmann says, \"compels us to admit that he does rise\nto it.\" It were very much that a man with any ideal, however inferior,\nshould be able to say to himself, I have not fallen short of this\nideal; but that one, who sees more clearly than any other in the realm\nof the moral and spiritual, and who has an ideal of simply absolute\nlove and of unbounded trust in God,--that he should show not only no\nconsciousness of falling short, but should consciously rise to his\nideal and compel us to admit that he rises to it: this is a fact\nunparalleled in the history of the world. It is far more than mere\nsinlessness; there is here a positiveness of moral achievement so\ngreat--a fact so tremendous--that we seem able but feebly to take it\nin.\n\n(4) And even that is not all. _Jesus has such a character that we can\ntransfer it feature by feature to God_, not only with no sense of\nblasphemy, not only with no sense of his coming short, but with\ncomplete satisfaction. I do not now ask at all as to any man's\nmetaphysical theory about Jesus Christ; I only ask that it be noticed\nthat those who question common theories altogether still get their\nideal of God from Jesus Christ; and that this is the wonderful thing\nthat has happened on our earth: that there has once lived a man--daily\nmoving about among men, a concrete circumstantial account of whose\nlife in many particulars we have--the features of whose character one\ncan transfer absolutely to God and say, That is what I mean by God.\nOne simply cannot add anything to the character of God himself in the\nhighest moments of his imagination, that is not already revealed in\nJesus Christ. I take it that the words of Fairbairn are literally\ntrue: he was \"the first being who had realized for men the idea of the\nDivine.\" When, therefore, Philip said to him, \"Lord, show us the\nFather and it sufficeth us,\" he could only reply as he might any day\nto us, \"Have I been so long time with you, and dost thou not know me,\nPhilip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.\"\n\n(5) And one cannot stop here. _Jesus is consciously able to redeem all\nmen._ With such sense of the meaning of sin and of moral conduct as no\nother ever had, understanding, therefore, the sin and need of men as\nno other ever did, and having such a vision of what it is perfectly to\nshare the life of God as no other ever had, still, facing the masses\nof men, he could say to himself, \"I am able to take these men and lift\nthem into the very presence of God and present them spotless before\nthe throne of his glory.\" Have we taken in what it means, that, in the\nconsciousness of a man in form like ourselves, there could be, even\nfor a moment, the actual belief that he was the one that was to take\naway the sin of the world, and had power to redeem men absolutely unto\nGod? In another's words: \"Jesus knows no more sacred task than to\npoint men to his own person.\" He is himself God's greatest gift,\nhimself \"the way, the truth, the life,\"--not only fighting his own\nbattles, but consciously able to redeem all men.\n\n(6) This simply implies, as Dr. Denison has suggested, that _Jesus has\nsuch God-consciousness and such sense of mission as would simply\ntopple any other brain that the world has ever known into insanity_,\nbut which simply keeps him sweet, normal, rational, living the most\nwholesome and simple and noble life the world has ever seen. How are\nwe to explain that fact? On the one hand, the sense of being of even a\nlittle importance in the kingdom of God proves singularly intoxicating\nto men. How often, when one is strongly possessed by the idea that he\nis a special channel of manifestation for God, do moral sanity,\ninfluence, and character all suffer! On the other hand, there is no\nburden of suffering that men can bear so great as suffering in the sin\nof one loved--thus bearing the sin of another. But here is one who can\nbelieve that, when men come to him and simply see him as he is, they\ncatch their best vision of God; here is one who bears consciously the\nsin of all men, and who can believe that he has absolute power to\nrevolutionize the lives of other men and make them what they were\nmeant originally to be, children of God; and yet, believing this, can,\nunder that consciousness, keep sweet and normal, wholesome and simple,\nenergetically ethical and thoroughly rational,--can keep sane. Indeed,\nhe lives a life so sane, that, to pass even from some of our best\nreligious books into the simple atmosphere of the story of his life\noften seems like passing from the super-heated, artificially lighted,\nheavily perfumed and exhausted atmosphere of the crowded drawing-room\ninto the open fresh air of day under the heaven of God. In the very\nact of the most stupendous self-assertion, Jesus can still\ncharacterize himself as \"meek and lowly of heart,\" and we feel no\nself-contradiction--so completely has he harmonized for even our\nunconscious feeling his transcendent self-consciousness and his humble\nsimplicity of life. Has the world anywhere a phenomenon comparable to\nthis?\n\n(7) In consequence of all this, _Jesus is in fact the only person in\nthe history of the race who can call out absolute trust_. As little\nchildren, we knew something of what it meant to have complete trust.\nThere were a few years when it seemed to us that there was nothing in\neither power or character that was not true of our fathers and\nmothers. We soon lost such trust, even as children. Is there any way\nback to the childlike spirit? Let us ponder these golden words of\nHerrmann: \"The childlike spirit can only arise within us when our\nexperience is the same as a child's; in other words, when we meet with\na personal life which compels us to trust it without reserve. Only the\nperson of Jesus can arouse such trust in a man who has awakened to\nmoral self-consciousness. If such a man surrenders himself to anything\nor any one else, he throws away not only his trust, but himself.\"\nThere has been one life lived on earth, in whose hands one may put\nhimself with absolute confidence and have no fear as to the result.\nJesus, and Jesus alone, can call out absolute trust.\n\n(8) Moreover, _Jesus is the only life ever lived among men in whom God\ncertainly finds us, and in whom we certainly find God_. And, once\nagain, I am not now asking whether one is able to come to any theory\nof the nature of Christ. That is a matter of comparative indifference.\nThe great fact is this: That there has been lived among us men such a\nlife that, if a man will simply put himself in the presence of it and\nstay there, he will have brought home to him with unmistakable\nconviction the fact that God is, and is touching him and that he is\ntouching God; that, coupled with such a sense as he never had before\nof his sin, there will be also the sense of forgiveness and\nreconciliation with God, and so, such evidence of the contact of God\nwith his life as he can find nowhere else. So Harnack believes: \"When\nGod and everything that is sacred threaten to disappear in the\ndarkness, or our doom is pronounced; when the mighty forces of\ninexorable nature seem to overwhelm us, and the bounds of good and\nevil to dissolve; when, weak and weary, we despair of finding God at\nall in this dismal world,--it is then that the personality of Christ\nmay save us.\"\n\n(9) And all this means, finally, that _Jesus is for us the ideal\nrealized_. Let not the commonplaceness of the words rob us of their\nmeaning. The fact is far enough from the commonplace. Philosophy must\nalways tell us that we have no right to expect anywhere a realized\nideal, except in the absolute whole of things. Certainly, we never\nfind in any of the inferior spheres a fully realized ideal. What does\nit mean, then, that in this highest of all spheres, the sphere of the\nmoral and spiritual life, we have the ideal realized; that our very\nhighest vision is a fact? What is there that one would add to, what,\nthat one would take away from, the life of Christ, that it might be\nmore completely than it is the ideal realized?\n\n \"But Thee, but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time,\n But Thee, O poet's Poet, wisdom's tongue,\n But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love,\n O perfect life in perfect labor writ,\n O all men's Comrade, Servant, King or Priest,--\n What _if_ or _yet_, what mole, what flaw, what lapse,\n What least defect or shadow of defect,\n What rumor, tattled by an enemy,\n Of inference loose, what lack of grace\n Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,\n Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,\n Jesus, good Paragon, thou crystal Christ?\"\n\n4. _Christ's Double Uniqueness._--It seems hardly possible to do\njustice to the facts now passed in review, without recognizing, at\nleast, that they point to a double uniqueness on the part of Christ in\nhis relation to God, reflected in his own language concerning himself\nand in the spontaneous confessions of his disciples in all times. He\nalone, in the emphatic sense, is _the_ Son. The contrasts between\nChrist and other men, which the simple facts of the life and\nconsciousness of Christ have compelled us to make, naturally, then,\ndemand recognition from thought. The recognition of the facts _is_ the\nvital matter, but thought can hardly see them unmoved. How are we to\n_think_ of Christ? With clear remembrance, now, that Christian\nteaching itself insists upon the kinship of God and men; that absolute\nbarriers, therefore, cannot anywhere be set up; that a revelation\nunrelated to all else could be no revelation; and that Christ himself\noften pointed out the likeness between his own life and work and those\nof his disciples;--still we may not ignore actual differences, and\nmust honestly strive to do justice to them in our own conception of\nChrist. One may not forget that there is much here that we can hardly\nhope ever to fathom; and that into this secret of Christ's relation to\nthe Father theology has often tried to press with a precision of\nstatement that was quite beyond its possible knowledge, and that\ndamaged rather than helped the religious consciousness; but one may\ntry to think in simple, straightforward fashion what the facts mean.\nNow these actual and momentous moral and spiritual differences already\npointed out seem, at least, to assert, I say, a genuine double\nuniqueness in Christ. Christ's relation to God is absolutely unique,\nthat is, in two senses: in the absolutely unique purpose of God\nconcerning him; in the absolutely perfect response of Christ to that\npurpose. If one chooses to use the language, he may say, that the\nfirst uniqueness is metaphysical; the second, ethical.[101]\n\nFirst, then, God has a purpose concerning Christ, that he has\nconcerning no other, for he purposes to make in him his supreme\nself-manifestation. This sets him apart from all others. His\ntranscendent sense of God and sense of mission only correspond to the\nabsolute uniqueness of this eternal purpose of God concerning him. We\nare utterly unable to see that they could be borne by any being that\nwe know as man. He is the manifested God--\"the visible presentation of\nthe invisible God.\" This cannot be said, in the same sense, of any\nother. Now, our only adequate statement of the inner reality--the\nessential meaning--of any being, can be given only in terms of the\npurpose which God calls that being to fulfil. To see, then, that God's\npurpose concerning Christ is absolutely unique, and that God's purpose\nis, to make in Christ the completest possible personal manifestation\nof himself, is to see that Christ's essential relation to the Father\nis absolutely his own, unshared by any other. And, it may be added,\nthere is no reason why this purpose of God concerning Christ should\nnot be regarded as an eternal purpose, eternally realized.\n\nBut Christ is as clearly unique in his simply perfect response to this\npurpose of God. Our facts seem to point directly to the conclusion,\nthat in him there was no moral hindrance to the fullness of the\nrevelation God would make through him. His life is perfectly\ntransparent, allowing the full glory of the character of God to shine\nthrough it. The harmony of his will with God's will is complete. If it\nbe said that this last uniqueness is, after all, only difference in\ndegree from other men, it must be answered, first, that degree here is\nso vast as to be practically kind. This is the perfect of Christ set\nover against the varyingly imperfect of all other men. Moreover, to\nask here for difference in kind in any other sense, is probably to\nmake an unintelligent and impossible demand; for, in the nature of the\ncase, the relations involved are spiritual and personal, and there\ncannot be, in strictness, in the fulfilment of such relations any real\ndifferences in kind.\n\n5. _The Increasing Sense of Our Kinship with Christ, and of His\nReality._--Side by side with this recognition of the nature of\nChrist's uniqueness, there deserves to be set, as another outcome of\nthe emphasis upon conceiving Christ as a personal revelation of God,\nthe increasing sense of our kinship with Christ and of his reality.\nThe connection here is by no means accidental, though it may seem\nalmost paradoxical. We have plainly come in our day to our clearest\nrecognition of the divinity of Christ through the sense of his\ntranscendent character. But revelation in character requires the\nreality of his human life. The very route, therefore, by which we have\nmost certainly reached our sense of Christ's divinity, leads also to\nan increasing sense of kinship with Christ, and so of his reality. So\nlong as we seemed driven to conceive the divinity of Christ in terms\nthat had no relation and no meaning for human life, just so long must\nhe seem to us to be really moving in another world and to take on the\nunreality of that other world quite hidden from us. But now Christ's\nlife has meaning; we can enter into it and feel that it is real. With\nall its transcendence, the life does not move now simply in the sphere\nof the mysterious. It is no unreal drama, no play-struggle,--utterly\nfailing to meet our real moral and spiritual needs. Least of all, in\nthis supreme work for man, can the revealing life be only a show. It\nfeels real. It is real. And, with clear sense of the inevitable\ninadequacy of the analogy, we still rest confidently in the conviction\nthat God's relation to Christ may be best conceived after the analogy\nof the relation of the Spirit of God to our spirits; and that, when we\ntry to press beyond that, we are attempting to rise into that sphere\nof a supposed supra-personal, for which we have no possible organ of\nvision, and where, therefore, we are thinking not more, but less,\ntruly.[102]\n\nWith this sense of the reality of the personal, spiritual life of\nChrist, there naturally comes home to us the appropriateness and\n_practicability of his ideals_. They are seen to belong to us more\nsurely, and properly to make demands upon us. It is, probably, not too\nmuch to say that, under the influence of the social consciousness,\nthere has been a definite, growing approach to Christ's way of\nthinking, and to his ideal of life. This means a consciousness\nincreasingly Christian in tone, and, therefore, in turn, increasingly\nbetter able to interpret the teaching and life of Christ, and so to\ngive promise of a more Christian theology. None of us, probably, are\nfully conscious of the more subtle inconsistencies of even our best\ntheological thinking, when measured by a completely Christian spirit.\nAt least, with the insistence upon Christ as a personal revealer of a\npersonal God, it must become more true that the meaning of all terms\nfor the work of Christ shall be more clearly reasonable, more\nconsistently ethical, and more completely spiritual; and then the\nimmediate rooting of Christian theology in the Christian religion can\nbe seen and felt.\n\n\nIII. THE RECOGNITION OF THE PERSONAL IN GOD\n\nThe sense of the value and sacredness of the person must lead to the\nspecial recognition of the personal not only in man and in Christ, but\nalso in God. We have already seen reasons for believing that the\nsocial consciousness is peculiarly bound strongly to emphasize the\npersonality of God, as in the end absolutely essential to its own\njustification. The social consciousness represents an ethical movement\nthat can live only in the atmosphere of the personal.\n\n1. _The Steady Carrying through of the Completely Personal in the\nConception of God. Guarding the Conception._--This pressure of the\nsocial consciousness toward an imperative faith in the fully personal\nGod is most valuable, as offsetting the tendency in many quarters\ntoward a scientific or even idealistic pantheism or monism that is\nquite impersonal. \"For,\" in the language of Professor Howison, \"the\nvery quality of personality is, that a person is a being who\nrecognizes others as having a reality as unquestionable as his own,\nand who thus sees himself as a member of a moral republic, standing to\nother persons in an immutable relationship of reciprocal duties and\nrights, himself endowed with dignity, and acknowledging the dignity of\nall the rest.\"[103] As this is pre\u00ebminently the spirit of the social\nconsciousness, it is plain that we have in the social consciousness an\nincreasingly powerful motive for guarding the full personality of God.\n\nIt needs particularly to be noted, that we know no _definite_\n\"supra-personal.\" Pantheism or any impersonal monism is forced,\ntherefore, when it leaves the personal conception of God, to take a\nlower line of development, not a higher. The result is, that it is\nobliged to deny the highest attributes to God, and then, as Browning\nis fond of arguing, man steps at once into the place of God. Men\ncannot permanently remain satisfied with a philosophical view, of\nwhich that is the logical outcome. Certainly, such a view can get no\nsupport from the social consciousness, with its deep conviction of the\nsupreme value and sacredness of the person.\n\nMoreover, it is not to be forgotten, in estimating the value of a\ncosmic monism, that what the cosmological really means, ethically and\nreligiously, to a people, must always depend upon their social ideals.\nThe natural in itself contains no command. For any effective vital\ninterpretation, therefore, even of its impersonal Absolute, pantheism\nis constantly thrown back upon the personal.\n\nOnly a clear, steady carrying through by theology of the completely\npersonal in its conception of God can ultimately satisfy this sense of\nthe value and sacredness of the person. Professor Nash does not speak\ntoo strongly when he says: \"To fulfil her function the church must\ndevelop the doctrine of a Divine Personality. She has not always been\ntrue to it in the past. Too often, by her sacraments, by her theology,\nby her theory of inspiration, she has glorified the impersonal.\"[104]\n\nNow, such an attempt, it is perhaps worth saying once more, is not to\nbe thought of as a running away from a thorough-going metaphysical\ninvestigation. It rather takes the ground, indicated in the earlier\ndiscussion, of what may be called, in Professor Howison's language,\npersonal idealism; and holds that spirit, person, _is_ for us the\nultimate metaphysical fact: the one reality to which we have immediate\naccess; the reality from which all our metaphysical notions are\noriginally derived; and, in consequence, the one reality which we can\ntake as the key to the understanding of all else. And it believes that\neven essence and substance, the great words of the old metaphysics,\ncan be really understood only as they are interpreted in personal\nterms. Ultimately, theology would hold, this would mean the\ninterpretation of the essence of things in terms of the purpose of God\nconcerning them--what he meant them to be.\n\nIn the attempt, then, clearly and steadily to carry through the\nconception of God as completely personal, theology may well guard\ncarefully certain points. In the first place, theology does not mean\nto transfer to God human limitations; rather, it conceives him to be\nthe only complete personality with perfect self-consciousness and full\nfreedom, no part of whose being is in any degree foreign to himself.\nNor, in the second place, does it mean to forget that the personal\nrelations in which God stands to other persons are unique, and that,\nin three definite respects: that conviction of the love of God, as of\nno other, must underlie, as a great necessary assumption, all our\nthinking and all our living; that God is himself the source of the\nmoral constitution of man, which must thus be regarded as an\nexpression of the personal will of God, and the personal relation to\nGod so have universal moral implications such as no other personal\nrelation can have; and in that God is such in his universal love for\nall, that it is impossible to come into right personal relation to\nGod, and not at the same time come into right relation to all moral\nbeings.[105]\n\n2. _God is Always the Completely Personal God._--If, now, theology is\nto do justice to the demands of the social consciousness for a full\nrecognition of the personal in God, it must see clearly that God is\n_always_ the completely personal God. Certain conclusions, not always\nadmitted, are believed to follow from this position.\n\n(1) _The Consequent Relation of God to \"Eternal Truths.\"_--In the\nfirst place, there can be no sphere of eternal truths, thought of as\neither created outright by the will of God, or as existing of\nthemselves independently of God and only to be recognized by him.\n\nThe difficulty is not merely that at least one of these views would\nput God in the same dependent relation to truth as we finite beings,\nand thus practically put a God above God. Nor is the difficulty merely\nthat it is impossible to think the real existence of such a sphere of\neternal truth, since truths or laws can be said to exist only in one\nof two ways: either as the actual mode of action of reality, or as the\nperception and formulation in an observing mind of that mode of\naction. And these difficulties are both sufficiently serious.\n\nBut, from our present point of view, the great difficulty is, that\ntrying to conceive God as either creating or coming to the recognition\nof truth, assumes, as Lotze points out, a _fragmentary_ God, a God for\nwhom truth is _not yet_. It assumes an action of the will of God apart\nfrom his reason, that is, a God not yet completely personal, not yet\nthe full God of truth and character. A God for whom truth and duty are\nnot yet, is certainly no true person. Most, if not all, of our\nmetaphysical puzzles connected with the relation of God to what we\ncall eternal truths, seem to me to grow out of this thought of an\nessentially fragmentary God.\n\nWe are driven, consequently, to a denial of both the Scotist and\nThomist positions, as ordinarily conceived. It is true neither that\nthe truth is true and the good is good because God wills it, nor yet\nthat God wills the true because it is true and the good because it is\ngood. Both views alike assume the possibility of a fragmentary God, a\nGod for whom at some time truth and goodness were not yet. But God has\n_always_ been the completely personal God of truth and love, never a\nbare will and never a bare intellect. Hence, neither as an independent\nobject to be recognized, nor yet as the external product of his will,\ncan we think of the realm of eternal truth and goodness. We must\nrather say, God alone is the eternal being and absolute source of all,\nalways complete in the perfection of his personality; and, therefore,\nwhat we call the eternal truths are only _the eternal modes of God's\nactual activity_. This alone seems to the writer to give a\nthorough-going theistic view, free from self-contradiction.[106]\n\n(2) _Eternal Creation._--But, further, if God is to be thought as\n_always_ the completely personal God, we are led, also, immediately to\nthe doctrine of eternal creation.\n\nIf God has had always a completely personal life, his entire being\nmust have been always in exercise. Can we really think of such a God\nas simply quiescent, and not as always active? Is not his activity\ninvolved in his complete personality? The thought of his possible\nquiescence arises probably out of an unconscious, but nevertheless\nunwarranted, transfer to God of our finite separation of will and act.\nBut God is here, too, no fragmentary God; he has always been the\ncompletely personal God, always acting.\n\nA second consideration carries us to the same conclusion. Theologians\nhave felt that they have made a distinct step in advance in tracing\ncreation to love in God, as, for example, Principal Fairbairn does.\nBut this gives no real help as an explanation of creation as\n_beginning in time_; for one must at once ask, Was not the love of God\neternal, and if this were the real reason leading to creation, must\nnot, then, creation be eternal?\n\nSo far as I am able to see, there is nothing to lose and much to gain\nin clearness and satisfactoriness of thought in a frank acceptance of\nthe doctrine of eternal creation. Not, of course, in the sense of an\neternal dualism, in the sense of the thought of an eternity of matter\nset over against God, but in the clear sense of the eternal creative\nactivity of God. And to such a doctrine of eternal creation, the\nsocial consciousness, in its emphasis on the completely personal,\nseems to me to lead.\n\n(3) _The Unity and Unchangeableness of God._--And, once more, if God\nis always the completely personal God, we shall conceive his own unity\nnot as monotonous self-identity, but only as consistency of meaning.\nWe shall not, therefore, transfer to God, pluming ourselves meanwhile\nupon a highly philosophical view, the mechanical unchangeableness of a\nrock; but we shall be rather concerned with the consistency of his\ncharacter and the unchangeableness of his loving will, which would be\nthe very reasons for his changing, adapting attitude toward his\nchanging children. From this point of view, too, the sphere of law and\nthe sphere of the actual, will seem to us, necessarily, to root in the\nsphere of the ideal; the _is_ and the _must_, to rest in the _ought_;\nthough we may not hope to trace the connections in detail. In a God,\nthen, who is a completely harmonious person, never acting in\nfragmentary fashion, whose will and whose reason and whose love are\nnever at cross purposes--only in such a God can the world find its\nadequate and unifying source. The world itself has real unity only in\nso far as it is the expression of the consistency of meaning of the\npurpose of God concerning it.\n\nAnd this same thought of the consistency of the meaning of the purpose\nof God, I have elsewhere argued,[107] saves us from the necessity of a\nself-contradictory conception of the miraculous or supernatural, by\nits recognition of the dominant spiritual order. It also enables us to\nsee, with Professor Nash, if the word personal is given sufficient\nbreadth, that \"the true supernatural is the personal, and wheresoever\nthe personal is discovered, whether in the life of conscience or the\nlife of reason, whether in Israel or Greece, there the supernatural is\ndiscovered. Upon this conception of the supernatural as the personal,\napologetics must found the claims of Christianity. The divine and the\nhuman personality stand within 'Nature,' that is, within the total of\nbeing. But they both, the human as well as the divine, transcend the\nscope and reach of visible Nature.\"[108]\n\n(4) _The Limitations of the Conception of Immanence._--Indeed, it\nought to be clearly recognized on all sides by those who believe in\nreligion at all, that we cannot so exclusively emphasize the immanence\nof God, as many are now doing, and have a God at all, beyond the\nfinite manifestations. When the matter is so conceived, there is no\nreal personal God with whom there can be any personal communion.\nReligion, thus, in any ordinary sense of it, is by this process made\nsimply impossible; Positivism is the only logical result, and Frederic\nHarrison becomes the one sole, clear-sighted prophet among us, a lone\nvoice crying in the wilderness. Such an outcome is possible for any,\nbecause, and in so far as, they are not true to the social\nconsciousness in its demand for the completely personal God, who, in\nMartineau's language, is a genuinely \"free spirit.\"[109]\n\n3. _Deepening the Thought of the Fatherhood of God._--But the\ninfluence of the social consciousness in its deepening sense of the\nvalue and sacredness of the person, of obligation and of love, not\nonly tends to insist upon the completely personal in the conception of\nGod, but also tends to deepen our thought of the Fatherhood of God.\n\n(1) _History no Mere Natural Process._--No mere on-going of an\nunfeeling Absolute, whatever name be given it, will ever satisfy the\nsocial consciousness. The new sense of the sorrow and ethical meaning\nof the historical process demands, in the first place, that history\nshall not be regarded as a mere necessitated development, but a\nmovement in which men effectively co\u00f6perate, never more consciously\nand clearly than to-day; and secondly, it demands a _God_ who cares,\nwho loves, who guides. History cannot be a mere holocaust to God.\n\n(2) _God, the Great Servant._--Rather, as we saw in the fourth\nchapter, the social consciousness requires a God whose purpose shall\ncompletely support its own purpose, and so requires us, with\nFairbairn, to put Fatherhood before Sovereignty, not Sovereignty\nbefore Fatherhood, and requires us definitely to conceive God after\nChrist, as self-giving ministering love. It is one of the anomalies of\nChristian history, that the church has been so slow to cast off a\npagan conception of God, and to come to a truly Christian view. We can\nhardly take in Christ's own revelation of God without some sharing in\nhis sympathy for men. Some experience of our own is needed to unlock\nthe revelation. And, so, the steady deepening of the social\nconsciousness, both as to the value of the person and as to the sense\nof obligation, has certainly helped us to see that if God is to be\nhighest, he must be love, and thus the great servant, with\ntranscendent obligations, entering really and sympathetically into all\nour life.\n\n(3) _No Divine Arbitrariness._--With such a conception of God, every\ntrace of arbitrariness disappears. Calvinism, however strenuously\ninsisted upon, means a far different thing for any man who really\nfeels the pressure of the modern social consciousness, who has come to\nsome real sense of the value and sacredness of the person, that is,\nwho really sees God in Christ. The great truth of Calvinism, that God\nis the ultimate source of all, was perhaps never more secure than\nto-day; but that God, who is the absolute and ultimate source of all,\nis the fully personal God, whose will is never divorced from his\nreason and love, who knows no such abstraction as a bare and empty\nomnipotence without content or direction, but who is himself always\nliving love. The bane of much so-called Calvinism is in this\nsupposition of a fragmentary God, like a motion without direction or\nrate of speed. Arbitrary decrees are conceivable only from such a\nfragmentary God, not yet full and complete in his reality and\npersonality.\n\n(4) _The Passibility of God._--It would seem, also, that any vital\ndefense of the Fatherhood of God, required by the social\nconsciousness, involves further the frank admission of the passibility\nof God, whether it has the look of an ancient heresy or not. We must\nunhesitatingly admit that, without which God can be no real God to us.\n\"Theology has no falser idea than that of the impassibility of God. If\nhe is capable of sorrow, he is capable of suffering, and were he\nwithout the capacity for either he would be without any feeling of the\nevil of sin or the misery of man. The very truth that comes by Jesus\nChrist may be said to be summed up in the passibility of God.\"[110]\nWith the growing sensitiveness of the social consciousness, the\nproblem of suffering and of sin presses increasingly, and itself\nalmost compels the assertion of the passibility of God. Nothing less\ncan satisfy our hearts, nor indeed allow us to keep our reverence for\nGod.\n\nCertainly, with the increasingly clear vision, which the social\nconsciousness is giving us, of sympathetic, unselfish, definitely\nself-sacrificing, loving leadership even among men, we shall not rest\nsatisfied with less in God. We must have a suffering, seeking, loving\nGod; because our Father, suffering in our sin, bearing as a burden the\nsin of each, and not satisfied while one child turns away; no mere\non-looker, but in all our afflictions, himself afflicted. The cross of\nChrist, then, is only an honest showing of the actual facts of God's\nseeking, suffering love.\n\n4. _As to the Doctrine of a Social Trinity._--One inference for\ntheology widely drawn from the social consciousness, it ought in\nfairness, perhaps, to be said, seems to me unjustified,--the doctrine\nof a so-called \"Social Trinity.\" One must question the constant cool\nassumption made in these discussions of a social Trinity, that this\nview is the only alternative to what is called an \"abstract\nsimplicity.\" In any case, one would suppose, we must have in God all\nthe richness and complexity of a complete personal life, freed from\nthe limitations of finite personality. Something of the much that that\ninvolves we have been trying to point out. Here certainly is no\n\"abstract simplicity.\"\n\nMoreover, the conception of a social Trinity, so far as the writer can\nsee, carries us inevitably to a tritheism of the most unmistakable\nkind. \"Social\" involves full personality. Nothing requires more\ncomplete personality than love, which the view affirms to exist\nbetween the persons of the immanent Trinity, between the distinctions\nin the very Godhead. The relations of Christ to God were, of course,\ndistinctly and definitely personal; but it must not be forgotten that\nwe are not permitted, on any careful theological view, to transfer\nthese directly to the immanent relations of the Godhead.\n\nThe distinction drawn by Dr. W. N. Clarke,[111] between the doctrine\nof the biblical Trinity and the doctrine of the Triunity, I count of\ndecided value; but after one has made the distinction, one may doubt\nthe value of the contribution made by the doctrine of the Triunity.\nThe really immanent relations of the Godhead are necessarily hidden\nfrom us, and are, also, so far as the writer can see, without ethical\nor religious significance for us, except in the way of possible injury\nthrough substituting some supposed altogether mysterious and\nincomprehensibly sacred, for the well-known and truly sacred shown in\nthe ethical relations of common life.\n\nThe doctrine of the Triunity seems to have been originally intended to\nenable the church to hold the divinity of Christ. If we now get at\nthat and hold that from quite a different point of view, the older way\nbecomes less essential. We must, indeed, keep the ancient treasure,\nbut we need not keep it in the same ancient chest. None of us--not the\nmost orthodox--really find the _reasons_ for holding the divinity of\nChrist in the doctrine of the Triunity. It is interesting to observe\nhow widely separated from the doctrine of the Triunity are the\nconsiderations which really move men to faith in the divinity of\nChrist. That doctrine is, at the very most, only our philosophical\nsupplement intended to bring that, which on other grounds we have come\nto believe, into unity with our thought of God.\n\nBut, at least, we must so conceive the divinity of Christ, as not to\nget two or three Gods. And a \"Social Trinity\" does not seem to me to\navoid that, except in terms. However, therefore, we are to solve our\nproblem, we are not to take _that_ way out.\n\nWhat Dr. Clarke calls the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, on the\nother hand, seems to me to contain the very heart of Christianity,\nwhatever philosophical theory we put beneath it; and it became,\ntherefore, as expressed in the baptismal and benediction formulas, the\ngreat daily confession of the church, since it strongly expresses that\nof which we have been speaking,--the living love of God, a life of\nabsolutely self-giving love, of eternal ministry.\n\nThe biblical Trinity is, in truth, what it has sometimes been called,\nthe trinity of redemption; and, for me, directly emphasizes the great\nfacts of redemption. Here there are three great facts: First, the\nFatherhood of God, that God is in his very being Father, Love,\nself-manifesting as light, self-giving as life, self-communicating,\npouring himself out into the life of his children, wishing to share\nhis highest life with them, every one. Second, the concrete,\nunmistakable revelation of the Father in Christ, revealed in full\nethical perfection, as an actual fact to be known and experienced; no\nlonger an unknown, hidden, or only partially and imperfectly revealed\nGod, but a real, living God of character, counting as a real,\nappreciable, but fully spiritual fact in the real world. And, third,\nthe Father revealing himself by his Spirit in every _individual_ heart\nthat opens itself to him, in a constant, intimate, divine association,\nwhich yet is never obtrusive, but reverent of the man's personality,\nmaking possible to every man the ideal conditions of the richest life.\n\nWhat metaphysical theory we put under that confession of our full\nChristian faith, does not seem to me to be of prime importance. Men\nmay count it of great importance; but it can hardly be of first\nimportance, since, at the very most, only the beginnings of such a\ntheory can be found in the great New Testament confession of Christ.\n\n5. _Pre\u00ebminent Reverence for Personality, Characterizing all God's\nRelations with Men._--But the very heart of the conviction, on the\npart of the social consciousness, of the value and sacredness of the\nperson, is its _reverence for personality_; and this thought has much\nsignificance for theology, for, if this judgment of the social\nconsciousness is justified, it must be regarded as pre\u00ebminently\ncharacterizing God in all his relations with men.\n\n(1) _Reflected in Christ._--When, in the first place, we turn to\nChrist as the supreme revelation of God, we cannot fail to see that\nthis reverence for the personal marks every step he takes. It begins,\nof course, in the priceless value which Christ gives to each person,\nas a child of the living, loving Father.\n\nAnd it seems to determine his _whole method_ with his generation and\nwith his disciples. It is shown in the initial battle in the\ntemptations, as to the form his work was to take, and as to the means\nto be employed. There was here, as we have seen, from the start an\nabsolute subordination of all unspiritual and unethical methods in the\nbuilding of the kingdom. There is to be no over-riding of the free\npersonality anywhere. He faced successively the temptations to place\nhis dependence on the mere meeting of men's material needs--the\nkingdom by bread; the temptation to place his dependence on that which\nappealed most strongly to the oriental mind--the use of wonder-working\npower--the kingdom by marvel or ecstasy; the temptation to place his\ndependence on force--the kingdom by force. But Christ sees clearly\nthat God is no mere supplier of bread; that God is no mere\nwonder-worker, no mere giver of wonderful experiences; and that God is\nnot a tyrant to conquer by force. Everywhere, therefore, he sets aside\nwhatever may override the free personality. He would replace all the\nattractive and seemingly rapid methods of the kingdom by bread, the\nkingdom by marvel, and the kingdom by force, with the slow and tedious\nand costly but reverent method of the spiritual kingdom by spiritual\nmeans, the kingdom of God by God's way--of a trust freely won, a\nhumility spontaneously arising, a love gladly given. He can take no\npleasure in any kingdom but one of free persons.\n\nIn the same way, in his dealings with the inner circle of his\ndisciples, there seems to have been the most scrupulous regard for\ntheir own needed initiative. He apparently makes no clear announcement\nof himself as Messiah even to the disciples until late in his public\nministry, and, then, only after they have been brought, through weeks,\nif not months, of unusually close personal contact and impression of\nhis spirit, into their own confession of him. He steadily abjures,\nthat is, all dogmatism about himself, and leads them along by a purely\nspiritual method to a confession of him, that may be truly their own.\nThere is no piling up of proof-texts from the Old Testament, to show\nthat he is the Messiah. He seems never to have attempted any proof\nwith his disciples. Indeed, he seems purposely to have chosen the\nrather ambiguous title, \"the Son of Man,\" that men might be left free\nto come by moral choice to him.\n\nThe surpassingly significant fact, that Christ's chief work in the\nestablishment of the kingdom of God, as seems to me beyond doubt, was\nhis personal association with a few men; that, probably, a full third,\nperhaps more, of his very brief so-called public ministry was taken up\nwith a period of definitely sought comparative retirement with the\ninner circle of the disciples--all this points to the same recognition\nof the fundamental importance in Christ's eyes of such a reverence for\nthe person. The kingdom of God can be founded only by the full winning\nof free persons into his discipleship. The kingdom is first and last a\nkingdom of free persons, in Dr. Mulford's language, always a \"Republic\nof God.\" Professor Peabody's emphasis on the essential importance of\nChrist's individualism, that \"Jesus approaches life from within,\nthrough the inspiration of the individual,\"[112] it need not be said,\ngoes upon the same assumption of Christ's reverence for the person.\n\nIn his really public ministry the same spirit appears; for Jesus seems\nto me here constantly to be standing with a kind of moral shudder\nbetween the spirit of contempt in the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the\noutraged personality of the common people, even of the publicans and\nsinners. He feels the contempt even for these least, as a blow in his\nown face.\n\nThat glimpse which the Revelation gives us of Christ standing and\nknocking at the heart's closed door, is a true picture forevermore not\nonly of the attitude of Christ's earthly life, but of God's eternal\nrelation to us. Men may over-ride and outrage us, and even think that\nthey show the more love thereby; God, never. This principle, then, we\nmay take as absolutely crucial, in our judgment of God's dealings with\nus.\n\n(2) _In Creation._--It is fundamental even in creation. The very fact\nof the creation of persons implies it. Such a creation can have no\nsignificance, if, in the language already quoted from Howison, God's\n\"consciousness is void of that recognition and reverence of the\npersonal initiative of other minds which is at once the sign and the\ntest of the true person.\"\n\nAnd if love is, for a moment, to be thought of as the motive of\ncreation, it required for any satisfaction of it, persons who could\nfreely respond to that love.\n\nThe definite bestowal of the fateful gift of moral freedom, with the\npractical certainty of sin--the creation of beings who could choose\nagainst him--shows how deeply planted in the very being of God is this\nprinciple of reverence for the person.\n\nHere, too, the impossibility of arbitrary divine decrees meets us.\nThis would be treating a person as a thing, and God himself may not do\nthat and remain God. If a man cannot see his way to a faith both in\nthe divine foreknowledge and in the moral initiative of men,\ntherefore, he must not hesitate to choose even the divine nescience of\nthe free acts of men, rather than think of God as compelling men. Our\nwhole moral universe tumbles about our ears, if he who is the source\nof all is not in earnest with persons. And yet there is much\ntheological thinking, of which the common notions of a personal reign\nof Christ on the earth may be taken as an example, that practically\nlooks to a kingdom by compulsion. A kingdom of free spirits cannot be\nmerely decreed.\n\n(3) _In Providence._--And this same principle of reverence for\npersonality must be felt to be the guiding motive and key, as well, in\nthe providence and government of God. God keeps his hands off. He must\nso act as to call out, not to suppress, individual initiative.\n\nThis is, perhaps, the deepest reason for a sphere of law, that there\nmay be a realm in which a person can have his own free development,\nuninterfered with by any moral compulsion.\n\nIf, now, this sphere of law is to be any true training ground for\ncharacter, as we saw in the third chapter, results must not be\nforthwith set aside, the mutual influence of men must hold all along\nthe line.\n\nEven in the case of great evils, God does not step in at once to set\nthings right. Character is an exceedingly costly product. This is no\nplay-world, either as to mutual influence or as to freedom. God guards\nmost jealously the freedom and personality of men. He never forgets\nthat character must be from within. He will not accept, as Christ\nwould not, a faith compelled by \"signs.\" Hence, too, we are left to\n_ask_, and much is left to depend on our asking. So, also, God does\nnot remove all difficulties and give sight in place of faith. He seems\neven careless, often, of how things go; for he would not only appeal\nto the heroic in us, but he wishes to make it impossible for us to\nconfuse prudence and virtue in ourselves or others, and so to give us\nthe opportunity and the joy of a real moral victory, of knowing that\nwe have made a genuinely unselfish surrender to the right.\n\nIn the light of this deep-lying principle of God's sacred reverence\nfor the person, one learns to hush his former complaints, and with\nfull heart to thank God that he lives in a world where righteousness\nand happiness do not always seem to fall together, and where,\ntherefore, he can \"serve God for naught.\" Oh, let us know, that it is\nnot that God does not care, but that he cares so much--too much to\nsacrifice to present comfort the character of the child he loves--too\nmuch to shut him out from his highest opportunity.\n\n(4) _In Our Personal Religious Life._--And the same principle holds in\nour personal religious life. The unobtrusiveness of God's relation to\nus, of which we often complain, is rather to be taken as evidence of\nhis sacred respect for our own moral initiative, and proof of his\ncareful adaptation to our moral need. Wherever a strong personality is\nin relation to a weaker, the stronger must maintain a conscientious\nself-restraint, lest he dominate the personality of the other, to the\nother's moral injury and to the hindering of his individuality. It\n_is_ possible for a boy to be injuriously \"tied to his mother's\napron-strings.\" Much more is it necessary that God's relation to us\nshould not be obtrusive. God must guard our freedom and our\nindividuality. He must even take pains to hide his hand, as a strong,\ninfluential, but wise friend would do. As we go higher, our life is\nand must be increasingly one of faith, the Father's relation less and\nless obtrusive.[113] The times of vision are given to make us patient\nin our progress toward the goal. And after the vision comes often what\nRendel Harris calls \"the dark night of faith, when every step has to\nbe taken in absolute dependence upon God and assurance that the vision\nwas truth and was no lie.\"[114] We need the invisible God for\ncharacter.\n\nIt is for this reason, no doubt, that God makes so rare use of\noverwhelming experiences in the religious life. He would be chosen\nwith clear and rational self-consciousness, and so he rarely\noverpowers. And even in experiences which seem most overpowering, if\nthe person is really awake to their true ethical and spiritual import,\nthey will probably be found delicately adapted to call out the\nindividual's own response. But for most of us such experiences prove a\nreal temptation, because we allow the passively emotional to absorb\nour attention, and so lose the ethical and spiritual fruit. Where\nthese marvelous experiences have been most marked, and have plainly\ngiven real help, they seem still, usually, to have been needed because\nof some false conception of God and the spiritual world that required\na powerful corrective. Here they seem really to have been granted, as\nprobably the transfiguration of Christ was to the disciples, as a\nconcession to men's weakness, God consenting reluctantly to use for\nthe time a lower line of appeal, because men are unable to rise to the\nhigher appeal.\n\nWe have already seen the danger of the neo-platonic over-estimation of\nemotional experience, and of sudden and magical crises in religion;\nand this danger is especially seen in much that is said concerning the\nwork of the Holy Spirit. It seems as if it were simply true, for many\nearnest and sincere Christians, that the superstitions, which they had\nconscientiously put aside elsewhere in religion, all came back in\ntheir thought of the work of the Spirit. Here their relation to God\nhas ceased to be thought of as a personal or moral or truly spiritual\none; and they are looking more or less definitely for bodily thrills,\nfor marked and overwhelming emotional experiences, or for sudden\ntransformations--hardly to be called transformations of character--in\nthe passive half-magical removal of temptations altogether. That is,\nthey are looking for moral and spiritual results from unmoral and\nunspiritual processes. The exact point is this: Doubtless we are not\nnarrowly to limit what the personal influence of the personal Spirit\nof God may do in transforming human life--the possibilities probably\nfar transcend what we think--but we are clearly to see that the\nrelation is personal, that the influence is spiritual and under\nstrictly ethical conditions, if we are to escape from simply pagan\nsuperstition. Let us see that, if God is a Personal Spirit and not an\nimpersonal substance, then, as Herrmann says, he \"communes with us\nthrough manifestations of his inner life, and when he consciously and\npurposely makes us feel what his mind is, then we feel himself.\"[115]\n\nAnd, then, let us add, as has been already earlier said, that the\ndeepening life in the Spirit becomes plainly a deepening personal\nfriendship and communion with God, with laws--those of a growing\nfriendship--that we may study and know and obey; and among these laws,\nnone is of more central importance than this of the reverence for the\nperson.\n\n(5) _In the Judgment._--And when we turn to God's relation to us in\nthe judgment, we can be sure, I think, of a further application of\nthis principle, contrary to common teaching and expectation. We have\nno reason to look forward to a time when the secrets of all, or of\nany, hearts shall be laid bare to all. In so doing, God would violate,\nit seems to me, the principle of his entire dealing with men, and give\nthe lie to his own revelation in Christ and in history. For myself,\nDr. Clarke's words carry immediate conviction: \"No man needs to know\nthe secrets of his neighbor, and be able to trace the justice of God\nthrough his neighbor's life, and no man who respects the sacredness of\nindividuality will desire it. Neither revelation of his own secrets\nnor knowledge of another's seems a good thing to a self-respecting\nsoul.\"[116]\n\nEven the judgment itself proceeds, no doubt, in clear recognition of\nthe free personality. We are \"judged by the law of liberty.\" And we\nreally choose our own destiny, as Phillips Brooks suggests in one of\nhis most striking paragraphs. \"By this law we shall be judged. How\nsimple and sublime it makes the judgment day! We stand before the\ngreat white throne and wait our verdict. We watch the closed lips of\nthe Eternal Judge, and our hearts stand still until those lips shall\nopen and pronounce our fate, heaven or hell. The lips do not open. The\nJudge just lifts his hand and raises from each soul before him every\nlaw of constraint whose pressure has been its education. He lifts the\nlaws of constraint, and their results are manifest. The real intrinsic\nnature of each soul leaps to the surface. Each soul's law of liberty\nbecomes supreme. And each soul, without one word of commendation or\napproval, by its own inner tendency, seeks its own place.... The\nfreeing of souls is the judging of souls. A liberated nature dictates\nits own destiny. Could there be a more solemn judgment seat? Is it not\na fearful thing to be judged by the law of liberty?\"[117]\n\nAnd we may be most certain, that, in any judgment by God, there can be\nno thought of \"human waste.\" The man must remain for God, to the end,\na child of God, a person of sacredness and value, to be dealt with\nalways as capable of character. And it is along just this line that,\nindependently of exegetical grounds, it seems to me, we are led to a\ndecisive rejection of the doctrine of annihilation. And I know no more\nconvincing putting of the matter than this brief but comprehensive\nstatement of Fairbairn: \"If there is any truth in the Fatherhood,\nwould not annihilation be even more a punishment of God than of man?\nThe annihilated creature would indeed be gone forever--good and evil,\nshame and misery, penalty and pain, would for him all be ended with\nhis being; but it would not be so with God--out of his memory the name\nof the man could never perish, and it would be, as it were, the\neternal symbol of a soul he had made only to find that with it he\ncould do nothing better than destroy it.\"[118]\n\n(6) _In the Future Life._--Doubtless our difficulties are not at an\nend even so; but, at least, our conception of God is saved from\nself-contradiction; and the Father is seen as suffering in the sin of\nthe son, and perpetually desiring and seeking his return, never\nsatisfied so long as any child of his still refuses his place in the\nFather's love. This deep-going principle of reverence for personality,\nwith which we are dealing, is the finest flower of human ethical\ndevelopment, and seems completely to shut out the possibility of\ncompulsion by God at any time in the future life. A person will never\nbe treated as a thing. The soul that turns to God must be won\nvoluntarily.\n\nAnd if, then, the abstract possibility of endless resistance to God by\nmen cannot be denied; so neither can the possibility--perhaps one\nmight even say, the practical probability--be denied that God, in his\ninfinite love and patience and wisdom, may finally win them all out of\ntheir resistance. And the eternal hope is at least open; but it is\nopen, it should be noted, only upon the fulfilment by men of precisely\nthose moral conditions which hold now in the earthly life, and which\nought now to be obeyed. There will never be an easier way to God. It\nis shallow thinking that supposes that, if there be any possibility of\nturning to God in the future life, it is of small moment that one\nshould now put himself where he ought to be. The full results of all\nour evil sowing, we must receive. The utmost that on any rational\ntheory, then, can be held out to men, is the hope that, facing a\ngreater heritage of evil than now they face, they might return to God\nunder the same condition of absolute moral surrender, which now holds,\nand the fulfilment of which is now far more easily possible to them.\n\nAnd it ought not to be overlooked that, even if the principle of\nreverence for personality be much less far-reaching than is here\naffirmed, the annihilation of a soul by God could seem justified only\nupon the assumption that God foresaw the entire future, and knew that\nthe soul would never turn to righteousness and God. But if the\ndoctrine of annihilation is to be justified on _that_ ground, it is to\nbe observed, that the same foreknowledge would have enabled God to\nknow before creation all the finally incorrigible, if there were to be\nany such, and so he need not have called these into being at all. A\ngoal, therefore, as great if not far greater, than that offered by the\nannihilation theory would be, thus, attainable simply upon the same\nassumption that must rationally be made by that theory, and, at the\nsame time, the great objection to that theory--its violation of\npersonality--would be avoided.\n\nIt seems probable that this very principle of reverence for\npersonality contains the chief reason why more has not been revealed\nto us concerning the future life. Christianity is very far from\nsatisfying our curiosity here. It gives little more than the\nabsolutely needed assurance of the fact and worth of the life beyond.\nDetails are either quite lacking, or given only in broadest symbols.\nThis reticent silence of revelation seems needed if our individual\ninitiative is not to be hindered, either by excess of motive on the\none hand, or by the depression of an unappreciated ideal on the other\nhand.\n\nOn the one hand, that is, so far as we could understand a detailed\nrevelation of the future life, to set it forth with the realism of the\npresent life would be to interfere with that unobtrusive relation of\nGod to us, which we have seen to be so necessary to our highest moral\ntraining. We need, in this time of our training, a certain obscurity\nof spiritual truth; we need to walk by faith, not by sight. To be able\nso obviously to weigh the eternal realities against the temporal,\nwould hinder rather than help our growth in loyal, unselfish\ncharacter.\n\nOn the other hand, if a complete and indubitable revelation of the\nfuture life were given us, no doubt there would be much that could\nmake but small appeal to us, and might even prove positively\ndepressing, because we have not yet the experience which would\ninterpret to us its meaning and open to us its joy. Our earthly life\nmay furnish us an analogy. The joy of a grown man is often\npre\u00ebminently in his work, but he would find it difficult to explain to\na child the source of his joy. And if the child were told that there\nwould come a time in a few years when his chief joy would be found in\nwork, the prospect would probably not seem to him inviting. The wisest\nof us may be as little prepared to enter in detail into the meaning of\nthe future life.\n\nWe may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value\nbeyond that which we can now understand; and we may be assured that at\nleast what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the\nrichest life,[119] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the\nfuture life. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great\ncenters of the life beyond must be association and work; though we may\nnot know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both\nmay deepen beyond our present conception. Steadily deepening personal\nrelations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to God in\nChrist, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with\njoy, because it is God's work. This, at least, the future life will\ncontain. We can hardly go farther with assurance.\n\nBut perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the\nproportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and\nstill alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to God. That\nGod has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance,\nthe facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only\nanother application of this same principle of reverence for the\nperson, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great\njoy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung\nsuggestively calls \"an apocalypse of Kipling.\" In Kipling's poem to\nWolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees \"the discovery of a religion,\nor assignable and eternally rewardable relation to God, in those whose\ninner life is not introspective or self-expressive.\" Their spiritual\nlife \"serves God with the joy which comes of following and satisfying,\nin the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will.\" \"It\nis the religion of work and of daring.\" And \"it is only in the open\nvision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was\nunconsciously serving God all along, begins to come to the perception\nof a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an\nobedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our\nFather's praise.'\"\n\nIt is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into God's\nown deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's\ndivinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize\nthe essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door\nof hope, where God has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant\nthe divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike.\n\"Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he\nstandeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath\npower to make him stand.\"[120]\n\n[92] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. x.\n\n[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106.\n\n[94] See especially Bowne, _Theory of Thought and Knowledge_, pp.\n239, 377, 378; James, _The Will to Believe_, pp. 145 ff.\n\n[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff\n\n[96] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 241 ff.\n\n[97] Hastings, _Dictionary of the Bible_, Vol. II, p. 626.\n\n[98] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chaps. VI and VII.\n\n[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the\npropositions briefly summarized in the _Reconstruction in Theology_,\np. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book,\nbecause they fit so closely into the argument here.\n\n[100] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 378.\n\n[101] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249.\n\n[102] See King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, p. 209; and below, p. 209.\n\n[103] _The Limits of Evolution_, p. 7.\n\n[104] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.\n\n[105] Cf. King, _Reconstruction in Theology_, pp. 205 ff.\n\n[106] Cf. Lotze, _The Microcosmus_, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff.\n\n[107] See _Reconstruction in Theology_, Chapter VI.\n\n[108] _Ethics and Revelation_, p. 270.\n\n[109] See the fuller statement in the _Reconstruction in Theology_,\npp. 96-108.\n\n[110] Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 483.\n\n[111] _Outline of Christian Theology_, pp. 161, ff.\n\n[112] _Jesus Christ and the Social Question_, p. 101.\n\n[113] Cf. Fairbairn, _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, pp.\n434, 435.\n\n[114] _Union with God_, p. 109.\n\n[115] _The Communion of the Christian with God_, p. 143.\n\n[116] _An Outline of Christian Theology_, p. 464.\n\n[117] _The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermons_, p. 197.\n\n[118] _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_, p. 467.\n\n[119] See above, pp. 68 ff.\n\n[120] Romans 14:4.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n Abbott, Lyman, reference to, 131.\n\n _American Journal of Theology, The_, reference to, 86.\n\n Analogy of Organism. See Organism.\n\n Annihilation, doctrine of, why rejected, 239 ff.\n\n Arbitrariness, excluded in God, 220 ff.\n\n Aristotle, quoted, 26;\n his position abandoned by mysticism, 56.\n\n Association, personal, in redemption, 149 ff;\n in personal relation to God, 159 ff;\n in confessions of faith, 167 ff.\n\n Assumption of the book, 3.\n\n Atonement, in the light of social consciousness, 147 ff, 150 ff;\n the cost of, 150;\n substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff;\n analogy of father and child in, 154 ff;\n blood covenant applied to, 157.\n\n\n Baldwin, J. M., reference to, 12.\n\n Biblical Trinity, 224, 225.\n\n Blood covenant, as applied to doctrine of atonement, 157.\n\n B\u00f6hme, Jacob, referred to, 71.\n\n Bowne, B. P., on causality and purpose, 43;\n on freedom, 182, 183.\n\n Bradley, F. H., on the religious feeling in philosophy, 129.\n\n Brooks, Phillips, reference to, 28, 146;\n on the intellectual life of Jesus, 81;\n on the emotional life of Jesus, 84;\n on the universal interest of Jesus, 124;\n on the likeness of men, 126;\n on judgment according to the law of liberty, 238.\n\n Bruce's _The Kingdom of God_, reference to, 52.\n\n Bushnell, H., on impenitence of Jesus, 193.\n\n\n Calvinism, 220.\n\n Causality and purpose, 42, 43.\n\n Christ, See Jesus.\n\n Christian, the historically, emphasized by the social consciousness,\n 102 ff.\n\n Christianity, as contributing to sense of mutual influences, 13;\n sometimes unconscious, 130.\n\n Church, the, importance of the doctrine of, 177 ff.\n\n Clarke, W. N., referred to, 116, 224;\n quoted, 132, 133, 152;\n on propitiation, 151;\n on doctrine of Trinity and Triunity, 223;\n on revelation of inner life at judgment, 237.\n\n Common qualities and interests, most valuable, 177 ff.\n\n Confessions of faith, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff;\n uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff;\n and undesirable, 171 ff.\n\n Corinthians, first, twelfth chapter of, as expression of analogy of\n organism, 23;\n against false mysticism, 60-61, 83.\n\n Cornill, reference to, 64.\n\n Creation, eternal, 214 ff;\n reverence for person in, 230 ff.\n\n Creed, Christian fellowship in, 167 ff;\n uniformity in, impossible, 169 ff;\n and undesirable, 171 ff.\n\n\n Denison, J. H., referred to, 197.\n\n Devotional literature, difficulty in, 84;\n referred to, 141.\n\n Dewey, John, referred to, 12.\n\n Drummond, H., reference to, 21;\n on sin, 140.\n\n Du Bois, Patterson, on true spirit of fatherhood, 110.\n\n Edwards, Jonathan, referred to, 22.\n\n Election, in Paul, 116;\n a choice for service, 116.\n\n Emotion, extreme emphasis on, a danger in mysticism, 71;\n cf. 135 ff.\n\n Eternal creation, 214 ff.\n\n \"Eternal truths,\" God's relation to, 212 ff.\n\n Ethical, the, in religion, 86 ff;\n proofs that religion must be, 89 ff.\n\n Ethicizing of religion, 89 ff;\n involved in relation to Christ, 89;\n the divine will in ethical command, 90;\n involved in nature of God's gifts, 91;\n communion with God through harmony with his will, 92;\n the vision of God for the pure in heart, 92;\n sharing the life of God, 93;\n Christ, as satisfying our claims on life, 94;\n attraction to Christ, ethically conditioned, 96;\n the moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98.\n\n Ethics and religion, 87, 89 ff.\n\n Everett, C. C, criticism of Nietzsche, 120.\n\n _Expository Times, The_, reference to, 64.\n\n\n Fairbairn, A. M., his _The Place of Christ in Modern Theology_,\n mentioned, 110;\n on the Christian consciousness, 112;\n referred to, 119, 196, 215, 234;\n on sense of sin, 143;\n on Christ as transcendent, 189;\n on passibility of God, 221;\n on annihilation, 239.\n\n Faith, necessity of, in life, 43, 44.\n\n Faith in men, increased by sense of likeness, 128.\n\n Father and child, the analogy of, applied to redemption, 154 ff.\n\n Favorites, none with God, 116 ff.\n\n Fellowship, Christian, help of, in coming into kingdom, 159 ff;\n within the kingdom, 162 ff;\n in intercessory prayer, 164 ff;\n in confessions of faith, 167 ff.\n\n Fiske, John, reference to, 21.\n\n Freedom, in man, 181 ff;\n Bowne on, 182, 183;\n references on, 182.\n\n Fremantle, W. H., reference to, 141.\n\n Friendship, laws of, as holding in religion, 67.\n\n Future life;\n moral reality of, 132 ff;\n reverence for person in, 240 ff.\n\n\n Galatians, Epistle to, referred to, 83.\n\n Genung, G. F., on \"an apocalypse of Kipling,\" 245.\n\n Giddings, F. H., reference to, 9, 10, 19, 20, 62, 117;\n on the \"social mind,\" 138.\n\n God, immanence of, as related to social consciousness, 40 ff;\n his will, ethical basis of social consciousness, 44 ff;\n sharing in our life, 48;\n will of, felt in ethical command, 90;\n his gifts require ethical attitude to receive them, 91, 92;\n our sharing his life, 93;\n we cannot do his will in general, 100;\n a thoroughly personal conception of, needed, 207 ff;\n guarding the conception of, 208 ff, 211;\n suprapersonal in, 209;\n Nash on doctrine of personality of, 210;\n always completely personal, 212 ff;\n relation to eternal truths, 212 ff;\n as eternally creating, 214 ff;\n unity and unchangeableness of, 216 ff;\n limiting conception of immanence of, 217 ff;\n deepening thought of Fatherhood of, 218 ff;\n as the great servant, 219;\n no arbitrariness in, 220;\n passibility of God, 221;\n trinity in, 222 ff.\n\n Grahame, Kenneth, on love, 123;\n referred to, 124.\n\n\n Harnack, A., on Christ, 200.\n\n Harris, J. R., quoted, 234.\n\n Hegel, on greatest in art, 119.\n\n Heredity, not to be over-emphasized, 37;\n James, on, 37, 38.\n\n Herrmann, W., referred to, 22, 70, 173;\n his definition of mysticism, 56, 57;\n on pantheistic tendency in mysticism, 58, 74;\n on our satisfaction in Christ, 94;\n on the help of the fellowship of the church, 161;\n on Christ's rising to his ideals, 194;\n on Christ's calling out absolute trust, 199;\n on personal relation to God, 237.\n\n Historical, the, under-estimated by mysticism, 72.\n\n Historical justification needed by social consciousness, 59 ff, 102 ff.\n\n Historically, the, Christian, emphasized by the social consciousness,\n 102 ff.\n\n History, no mere natural process, 218 ff;\n God in, vii, 219.\n\n Holy Spirit, doctrine of, often made superstitious, 236.\n\n Honesty of the world, double meaning of, 80.\n\n Hope for men, increased by sense of likeness, 128.\n\n Hosea, as illustration of inter-play of human and divine relations, 68.\n\n Howells, W. D., his _A Boy's Town_, quoted, 118;\n referred to, 123.\n\n Howison, G. H., on the person, 180, 208, 230;\n referred to, 210.\n\n Humanity, idea of, from Christianity, 13.\n\n\n Ideal view, requires the facts of the social consciousness, 29 ff, 32 ff.\n\n Imitation, to be avoided, 172 ff.\n\n Immanence of God, as metaphysical ground of facts of social\n consciousness, 40 ff;\n Lotze on, 40, 41;\n limitations in conception of, 217 ff.\n\n \"Immortability,\" discussed, 124 ff.\n\n Immortality, J. S. Mill on, 50;\n Sully on, 50;\n doctrine of, as affected by sense of likeness of men, 124 ff;\n references on, 125.\n\n Indian mysticism, 74.\n\n Israel, significance of its social struggle, 63;\n ecstasy among its prophets, 64.\n\n\n James, William, on heredity, 37;\n on metaphysics, 40;\n on sense of reality, 72;\n on nitrous-oxide-gas intoxication, 74;\n on the world as a confusion, 78;\n reference to, 79, 122, 124, 126;\n on compensations, 117;\n on varied ideals, 128;\n on catching faith and courage, 147.\n\n Jesus, Brooks on his intellectual life, 81;\n on his emotional life, 84;\n relation to, necessarily ethical, 89, 94, 96;\n satisfies our highest claims on life, 94;\n his social emphases, 111 ff;\n Brooks on his interest in the uninteresting, 124;\n the great Christian confession, 174 ff;\n loyalty to, best assurance for doctrine, 175;\n the personal in, 184 ff;\n a personal revelation of God, 184 ff;\n the moral and spiritual in his supremacy, 185 ff;\n grounds of his supremacy, 188 ff;\n among founders of religion, 189 ff;\n his sinlessness, 192 ff;\n his impenitence, 193;\n rises to highest ideals, 194 ff;\n shows character of God, 195 ff;\n consciously able to redeem all men, 196;\n transcendent God-consciousness and sense of mission, 197 ff;\n calls out absolute trust, 198 ff;\n in him God certainly finds us, 199 ff;\n the ideal realized, 200 ff;\n his double uniqueness, 201 ff;\n sense of kinship with, and reality of, 205 ff;\n divinity of, as related to Trinity, 224;\n reverence for person in, 226 ff.\n\n Judgment, according to light, 132 ff;\n how God's can be favorable, 153 ff;\n reverence for person in, 237 ff;\n according to law of liberty, 238 ff.\n\n\n Kaftan, J., referred to, 86.\n\n Keim, quoted, 52.\n\n King, references to his _Reconstruction in Theology_, 16, 20, 23,\n 43, 67, 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218.\n\n Kipling, R., on the value of the common, 119;\n G. F. Genung on, 245.\n\n\n Lanier, S., quoted, on Christ, 201.\n\n Leibnitz, referred to, 172.\n\n Life, the richest, ideal conditions of, 68 ff.\n\n Like-mindedness of men, 9 ff;\n an element of social consciousness, 9 ff, 47;\n influence on theology, 115 ff;\n summary on, 134;\n seen under diverse forms, 121 ff.\n\n Lotze, reference to, 13, 25, 31, 42, 213, 214;\n on passion for construing everything, 25, 26;\n on immanence of God, 40.\n\n Love, sense of, 20;\n element in social consciousness, 20, 51;\n as motive in creation, 215.\n\n\n Man, the personal in, 180 ff;\n separateness from God, 180 ff;\n freedom in, 181 ff; a child of God, 183 ff.\n\n Matheson, George, on sacrifice, 49.\n\n McConnell, S. D., objection to one part in his argument as to\n immortality, 124 ff.\n\n McCurdy, on the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63.\n\n Metaphysical, not to be emphasized, in conception of Christ, 185 ff;\n how to be thought, as to Christ, 203, 204;\n in doctrine of Trinity, 226.\n\n Mill, J. S., on immortality, 50.\n\n Moral world, prerequisites of, 30 ff;\n sphere of law, 30;\n ethical freedom, 30;\n some power of accomplishment, 31;\n members one of another, 32.\n\n Mistiness in mysticism, 73.\n\n Moral initiative in men, 181 ff.\n\n Moral law, a revelation of the love of God, 98.\n\n Mulford, E., referred to, 229.\n\n M\u00fcnsterberg, H., referred to, 79;\n reference to his _Psychology and Life_, 79.\n\n Mutual influence of men, 11 ff;\n contributing lines of thought, 11 ff;\n threefold form of the conviction, 13 ff;\n as element of social consciousness, 11 ff, 50;\n influence upon theological doctrine, 136 ff;\n for good, 144 ff;\n in attainment of character, 145 ff;\n in personal relation to God, 160 ff;\n in confession of faith, 167 ff.\n\n Mystical, the falsely, opposition of the social consciousness to,\n 55 ff, 57 ff;\n Nash's definition of, 55, 56;\n Herrmann's definition of, 56, 57;\n unethical, 58;\n no real personal God, 58;\n belittles personal in man, 59;\n Paul's rejection of, 60, 61;\n leaves historically Christian, 62 ff.\n\n Mystical, the truly, emphasized by the social consciousness, 66 ff,\n 70 ff;\n requires laws of a deepening friendship, 67;\n requires ideal conditions of the richest life, 68;\n protest in favor of whole man, 78 ff;\n its self-controlled recognition of emotion, 82 ff.\n\n Mysticism, its relation to the social consciousness, 55 ff;\n false, 55 ff;\n true, 66 ff, 70 ff;\n justifiable and unjustifiable elements in, 71 ff;\n its dangers:\n emotionalism, 71;\n subjectivism, 72;\n under-estimating historical, 72;\n mistiness, 73;\n pantheism, 73 ff;\n symbolism, 76.\n justifiable elements in, summed up, 77.\n\n\n Nash, H. S., on ethical basis of social consciousness in will of God,\n 45 ff;\n his definition of the mystical, 55, 56;\n referred to, 70;\n on doctrine of divine personality, 210;\n on the supernatural, 217.\n\n Neo-Darwinian school, referred to, 37.\n\n Neo-Platonic mysticism, 55 ff, 74.\n\n _New World, The_, reference to, 12, 120.\n\n Neitzsche, criticism of, by Everett, 120.\n\n\n Obligation, sense of, 18 ff;\n element in social consciousness, 18, 51.\n\n Organism, analogy of, 23 ff;\n value of, 23;\n classical expression in I Cor. 12;\n inadequacy of, for social consciousness, 24 ff:\n comes from the sub-personal world, 24;\n access to reality only through ourselves, 24;\n mistaken passion for construing everything, 25;\n tested by definition of social consciousness, 26 ff.\n\n Orr's _The Christian View of God and the World_, reference to, 51.\n\n\n Pantheism, tendency to, in mysticism, 58, 74.\n\n Paul, his rejection of the falsely mystical, 60, 61, 83.\n\n Paulsen, on key to reality, 25;\n reference to, 30, 129;\n on necessity of faith, 46, 47.\n\n Peabody, F. G., referred to, 65;\n on the social principles of Jesus, 111;\n on Christ's individualism, 229.\n\n Person, value of, 16 ff, 50;\n influence of sense of value of, on theology, 179 ff;\n reverence for, characterizing all God's relation to men, 226 ff.\n\n Personal, the, recognition of, 179 ff;\n recognition of, in man, 180 ff;\n recognition of, in Christ, 184 ff;\n recognition of, in God, 207 ff.\n\n \"Personal idealism,\" 180, 181, 210.\n\n Personal relation, in religion, emphasized by social consciousness,\n 66 ff;\n leads to the truly mystical, 70 ff.\n\n Philo, as representative of mysticism, 55.\n\n _Philosophical Review, The_, reference to, 40.\n\n Philosophy, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12.\n\n Plato, his position abandoned by mysticism, 56.\n\n Plotinus, as representative of mysticism, 55.\n\n Prophets, the, their standpoint abandoned by Philo, 55;\n their sense of the significance of the social struggle in Israel, 63;\n ecstasy in, 64.\n\n Propitiation, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 156, 158 ff.\n\n Providence, reverence for person in, 232 ff.\n\n Psychology, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 12.\n\n Purpose and causality, 42, 43.\n\n\n Race-connection, not prime cause of unity of men, 35 ff.\n\n Race, real unity of, 136 ff;\n its solidarity, how conceived, 16, 35, 30, 137.\n\n Ranke, on Christ, 192.\n\n Rational, two senses of, 80.\n\n _Reconstruction in Theology_, references to, 16, 20, 23, 43, 67,\n 185, 187, 188, 203, 205, 212, 217, 218.\n\n Redemption, as viewed from point of view of mutual influence for good,\n 147 ff;\n the cost of, 150;\n substitution and propitiation in, 150 ff.\n\n Religion, and theology, 6, 113;\n influence of the social consciousness upon, 53 ff, 70 ff;\n the personal relation in, emphasized by the social consciousness,\n 66 ff;\n its thorough ethicizing demanded by social consciousness, 86 ff;\n and ethics, 87;\n a supreme factor in life, 189.\n\n Reverence for the person characterizing all God's relations to men,\n 226 ff;\n reflected in Christ, 226 ff;\n in creation, 230 ff;\n in providence, 232 ff;\n in the personal religious life, 233 ff;\n in the judgment, 237 ff;\n in the future life, 240 ff.\n\n Ritschl, A., referred to, 137.\n\n Royce, Josiah, reference to, 12.\n\n\n Sabatier, A., reference to, 171.\n\n Sanday, W., reference to, 187.\n\n Schiller, F. C, S., reference to, 40.\n\n Science, as contributing to sense of mutual influence, 11.\n\n Scotist position as to God, 213.\n\n Separateness from God, meaning of, 180 ff.\n\n Sin, sense of, deepened by social consciousness, 139 ff;\n Drummond on, 140;\n lack of sense of, among Greeks, 140;\n when most feared, 143.\n\n Smith, G. A., reference to, 64.\n\n Social consciousness, definition, 9 ff;\n elements in, 9 ff;\n meaning of, for theology, 5 ff;\n analogy of organism, inadequate for, 24 ff;\n analogy, tested, 26 ff;\n necessity of its facts for ideal interests, 29 ff;\n the question, 29;\n else, no moral world, 30 ff, 32 ff;\n ultimate explanation and ground of, 35 ff;\n metaphysical ground, 35 ff:\n not due to physical race-connection, 35 ff;\n nor primarily to heredity, 37 ff;\n nor to mystical solidarity, 37 ff;\n but to immanence of God, 40 ff;\n ethical basis, 44 ff;\n supporting will of God, 44;\n Nash on, 45;\n Paulsen on, 46;\n God's sharing in our life, 48 ff;\n consequent transfiguration of, 49 ff.\n its influence upon religion, 53 ff;\n opposed to the falsely mystical, 57 ff;\n emphasizes personal relation in religion, and so the truly mystical,\n 66 ff;\n demands the ethicizing of religion, 86 ff;\n needs historical justification, 102 ff;\n its influence upon theological doctrine, 105 ff:\n general results, 105 ff;\n influence of like-mindedness of men, 115 ff;\n of mutual influence of men, 136 ff;\n of sense of value of person, 179 ff.\n\n \"Social mind,\" real meaning of, 138;\n Giddings on, 138.\n\n \"Social Trinity,\" 222 ff.\n\n Solidarity, a mystical, not to be pressed, 39.\n\n Solidarity of race, often falsely conceived, 16, 35, 39, 137 ff.\n\n Stevenson, R. L., on the poetical and ideal in men, 122;\n referred to, 123, 124.\n\n Subjectivism, tendency to, in mysticism, 72.\n\n Substitution, ethical meaning of, 150 ff, 158 ff.\n\n Sully, J., on immortality, 50.\n\n Supra-personal, the, in God, 209.\n\n Symbolism, strong tendency to, in mysticism, 76.\n\n Sympathy with men, increased by sense of likeness, 127.\n\n\n Tennyson, his self-hypnotism, 74.\n\n Theme of the book, 1 ff.\n\n Theologian, the, an interpreter, 5;\n a believer in the supremacy of spiritual interests, 6;\n assumes the fact of religion, 6;\n assumes a personal God, 7;\n takes point of view of Christ, 7.\n\n Theologian's, the, point of view, 5 ff.\n\n Theology, and religion, 6, 113;\n in personal terms, 106 ff;\n Fatherhood of God, determining principle in, 109;\n as influenced by social consciousness, 105 ff;\n general results in, 105 ff;\n influence of likeness of men on, 115 ff;\n influence of mutual influence of men on, 136 ff;\n influence of value of person on, 179 ff.\n\n Thomist position as to God, 223.\n\n Trinity, doctrine of, 222 ff;\n biblical, 224, 225.\n\n \"Trinity, Social,\" 222 ff.\n\n Tritheism, involved in a real social trinity, 222 ff.\n\n Triunity of God, doctrine of, 223 ff.\n\n \"Truths, eternal,\" God's relation to, 212 ff.\n\n\n Unchangeableness of God, 216 ff.\n\n Unconscious Christianity, 130.\n\n Uniqueness, a double, in Christ, 201 ff;\n metaphysical, 203, 204;\n ethical, 204, 205.\n\n\n Value and sacredness of person, 16 ff;\n sense of, element in social consciousness, 16, 50.\n\n\n Weismann, referred to, 37.\n\n\n Transcriber's Notes: Page 182, \"GOd\" changed to \"God\". Inconsistent\n hyphenation retained. Apparent printer's punctuation errors\n corrected. Italics indicated by _underscores_ and transliterated\n Greek by +plus signs+.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
","title":"Theology and the Social Consciousness: A Study of the Relations of the Social Consciousness to Theology (2nd ed.)","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":52708}