{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/wikisource_Defective_Logic_in_the_Discussion_of_Religious_Experience/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/wikisource_Defective_Logic_in_the_Discussion_of_Religious_Experience","id":"wikisource_Defective_Logic_in_the_Discussion_of_Religious_Experience","license":"Public Domain / CC-BY-SA (see source)","rights_basis":"wikisource_site_inclusion_policy","source":"wikisource","source_url":"https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Defective_Logic_in_the_Discussion_of_Religious_Experience","summary":null,"tags":["1911_works","Main_pages_with_authority_control_data","PD-old-95-US","Religion"],"text":"Defective Logic in the Discussion of Religious Experience\n\nOne wishes that Professor Ames had been content to draw only the conclusions which follow legitimately from the premises of his interesting and vigorously written book. In common with Irving King and other recent writers, he holds, in general, that the religious consciousness is social in nature and in origin. In particular, he argues that religious ceremonials are the crystallizations of social habits, that sacrifice is the perpetuation of the ceremonial, social meal (Ch.\u00a0VII.), that prayer is an immediate \u201cexclamatory impulse\u00a0\u2026 one factor in the larger ceremonial activity\u201c (Chs.\u00a0VIII., IX., XV.), that taboo can be explained without reference to divine authority (Ch.\u00a0IV.), and that religion differs from magic only as public practise is distinguished from private (Ch.\u00a0V.). \u201cBecause these ceremonials are social,\u201d Ames says, \u201cand therefore have the massive and corporate value of the entire community consciousness\u00a0\u2026 they attain the distinctive character which entitles them to be called religious\u201d (p.\u00a072). It would be rash to assert without further discussion that Ames gains all his contentions on these hotly disputed points. The present writer is not qualified to pronounce on many of these moot questions, and seeks simply to point out how far Mr.\u00a0Ames falls short, even granting his premises, from establishing his conclusion.\n\nOn its positive side, this conclusion is, to be sure, so vague that it is almost beyond the range of criticism. Religion is defined as \u201cthe consciousness of the highest social values\u201d (p.\u00a0168), \u201ca reflection of the most important group interests\u201d (pp.\u00a049, 50; cf. p.\u00a072), \u201ca system for the controlling of the group with reference to the ends which are felt most acutely by the group as a group\u201d (p.\u00a072). Negatively, however, the teaching of Ames gains precision through his opposition to the spiritistic, or personalistic, doctrine that religion consists in man\u2019s awareness of gods or of God. But the view that religious ceremonial is social in origin and in content, so far from disproving the doctrine that religion is conscious relation of human to divine, is perfectly compatible with it. One may admit without a quaver Ames\u2019s account of taboo, of magic, even of prayer, and still hold that the religious consciousness arises out of purely human, social intercourse only when this collective \u201cgroup consciousness\u201d gains as its object a self conceived as superhuman. Against such a construction Ames would, of course, interpose the considerations by which he seeks to discredit intellectualistic conceptions of religion. The rationalistic view of religion is, he holds, untrue to history and to psychology alike. Primitive man is not \u201cclearly conscious of himself as a spiritual agent or soul\u201d (p.\u00a095); \u201cthe notion of the soul does not precede the idea of objects\u201d (p.\u00a096); even the philosopher only \u201cgradually attains a dim, partially organized sense of personality\u201d (p.\u00a0972). Ames concludes that because the sense of personality is dim, it plays no r\u00f4le in the religious consciousness, and that if it is gained late in racial and in individual experience, the religious consciousness, admitted to be primitive, can not be limited to a personal object. Accordingly, he conceives a spirit as \u201can object which strikes the attention forcibly\u201d (p.\u00a0106); describes the gods of primitive peoples as \u201ccentral objects in the life processes of man\u201d (p.\u00a0311); and says vaguely that \u201cthe idea of God serves to generalize and idealize all values\u00a0\u2026, gathers into itself the interests and values of our daily concerns\u00a0\u2026, involves a living process, law, or movement in the working of which distinct ideals are attained\u201d (p.\u00a0318).\n\nThere is evident here, once more, a mistiness of positive conception and an insensitiveness to the limitations imposed by the nature of the argument. In the opinion of the writer, Ames argues effectively against the purely intellectualistic form of the personalistic conception of religion. But this does not justify him in his opposition to all forms of personalism. For a consciousness of self, however dim, is personal, not impersonal; and the awareness of God may be of any grade of clearness and of any conscious type. It may therefore be freely admitted that neither savage nor philosopher ever attains a consciousness of self which is free from contradictions, and that the religious experience of most people, civilized as well as primitive, is impulsive and emotional rather than reflective, practical rather than speculative. But it does not follow that the religious consciousness is impersonal or that it lacks a personal object. Rather, the consciousness of oneself in relation to a superhuman self is preeminently a feeling and willing consciousness even when it contains intellectual elements. From Schleiermacher down, the personalistic conception of religion has been held by scholars who have opposed, as vigorously as Ames himself opposes, a rationalistic account of the religious experience.\n\nTo conclude as we began: one may grant all the premises of Professor Ames without reaching either of his two conclusions: (1) that religion is merely the \u201chighest\u201d type of social experience, (2) that religion does not consist in the conscious relation to personal gods or God. On the other hand, there is abundant reason to conclude that every religion is a realized relation to a divine object conceived, or at least treated, as personal.\n\nMary Whiton Calkins.\n\nWellesley College.\n\nThis work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1931.\n\nThe longest-living author of this work died in 1930, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 95 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.\n\nPublic domainPublic domainfalsefalse","title":"Defective Logic in the Discussion of Religious Experience","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":970}