New theories and the old faith. A course of lectures on religious topics of the day, delivered in St. Thomas's square chapel, Hackney

Front matter

oa me a

NEW THEORIES

AND THE

Appendix

Note A.—ON BUDDHISM AS AN ARGUMENT FOR THE POSSI-

BILITY OF REST IN ATHEISM

» B.—ON THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY IN RELATION TO THE SOUL AND IMMORTALITY

5 C.—ON NATURAL PROCESS AND ORIGINAL FORCE.

» D.—ON THE METAPHYSICAL ISSUES OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE .

» E.—OnN St. PAUL’S REVELATIONS

, F.—EUSEBIUS ON THE CANON .

» G—ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

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190 204

207 209 219 223 a

2 At) Y al a gaat yaa J th Faun es

THE SOUL’S LONGING AFTER A FINAL CAUSE.

“The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with dearing.”—Kiccl. i. 8.

“ That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him and find Him.”’—Acts xvii. 27.

Ir, as I presume, you all take an interest in the progress of scientific discovery and the consequent modifications in theological opinion during the last half-century, I cannot appeal to unsympathetic hearts when I say that sometimes the future seems a very dreary outlook. I do not of course refer to the revolutions in time-honoured organizations and modes of thought, which appear more and more inevitable. The issue with which I propose to deal is much deeper than that. A vapour ‘heavy, hueless, formless, cold” creeps more and more above the distant horizon, and we feel as though its touch must be so far deadlier than physical death, that we would very much rather die before it comes any nearer. In one word, as all our bodily actions tend to death, so, to some moods B of mind at the present day, all activities of thought seem to have but one inevitable goal, a blank material atheism. J am of. course not stating my own fears; though I should be ill prepared to deal with the subject if I had never felt them. But I can easily understand the frame of mind to which in view of prevalent currents of thought at the present day, it may appear that there is no ultimate issue possible other than the one I have named. Let us therefore at the outset put the fears natural to such a frame of mind in the most plausible light, in order that we may not overestimate our resources against them.

The tendencies of the future, it may be urged, are to be augured, not from the present enthusiasms or prejudices of the many, but rather from the uniform leanings of those leaders of thought, who best know what the significance of scientific progress is. Indeed the real state of public opinion now is to be gathered, not from formulas of religious profession or worship, but rather from the practical attitude of men’s minds, and the conclusions which this tacitly assumes. Judging then in this way of the general tendency of thought, we may regard certain positions as permanently and irreversibly taken up, at least by the sort of minority which always decides the future of the world. It used to be regarded as a great stretch of charity if one could hope for the salvation of a Romanist or a Unitarian. But now it has come practically to this, that no intellectual opinion whatever whether religious or otherwise can possibly save or condemn a man’s soul. We are simply to apply the rule “‘by their fruits ye shall know them”’ impartially to Atheists, Deists and Christians, making abstraction altogether of their opinions while we do so. Farther, no one can now state a theory of the infallibility of the Bible, without encumbering it with so many limitations as to amount practically to its denial. Again the unmistakeable and, it may be added the resistless tendency of science is to extend the reign of law not only to all phenomena of existing nature, but also to every conceivable process in its development. And still farther, physiologists exhibit an always increasing confidence that all movements of mind are associated with, and find their equivalent expression in changes in the matter of the brain. What more is needed, ask some, to show that atheism is already clearly in view? One by one all sacred principles and objects of reverence are undermined or exploded; and very soon we shall have nothing left to us beyond what we can touch and taste and handle,—matter, nothing but matter, godless matter, or in other words material atheism.

I might reply, I am not so sure of that, at least so far as concerns the issue. Why should matter necessarily be godless? To urge that conclusion so confidently one ought to have found out what matter is; and I am not aware that any one has done so yet. The most plausible conjectures on the subject would rather begin an upward movement in the everlasting see-saw of opinion, by showing that matter is only a form of force, or aggregation of forces. And this would certainly point the way back to spiritualism. No; I am not at all sure that the reduction of everything to matter would involve atheism; in fact rather the contrary. As in Browning’s famous ring, the base alloy needed to work out the theory would fly off on its completion, and leave only forces, which, if they inhere in anything, are more likely to inhere in spirit and life than in aught else.

But that is scarcely the kind of reply to the religious fears of the times which I desire to urge now. I wish rather to insist on a principle in human nature which really makes the issue of all such controversies a foregone conclusion, however perplexing and uncertain they may appear to be in their course. A traveller, who comes upon a winding river in an unknown mountainous land, is not more sure that the ultimate destiny of that river is the sea, than we may be about the final issue of the only controversy which can be regarded as a question of spiritual life or death. I do not for a moment deny that individual men may conscientiously hold atheistic opinions. But I say that to regard these instances as prophetic tokens of the final destiny of human thought is just as though, standing by a river and noticing a back eddy here and there, you were to fancy that at some point in its course the stream might turn round and go up hill. In both cases there is an inward principle which, in spite of apparent exceptions to its

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AFTER A FINAL CAUSE, o working, all explicable on close examination, points to one only possible ultimate issue. In a word, what gravitation is to the stream, that I contend, the irrepressible longing of the soul after a final cause of existence is to the course of human opinion. It makes atheism for ever impossible, unless as a very exceptional position, and then only provisional, the negative expedient of suspense, not the confidence of assurance. Of course the position is not self-evident; and therefore the first thing that we have to do is to explain and support it. Afterwards I shall ask your attention to the degrees and disguises of which the apprehension of this final cause is susceptible, and the security which we have for its ultimate achievement in ourselves and others.

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This, says St. Paul, is the reason why God made the world; that it might be the abode of men, and that they might seek the Lord. We cannot help asking ourselves how comes St. Paul to speak with such confidence of God’s object in the creation of mankind ? To say that he does so by inspiration is to say little, | because the term, though, as we shall try to show in another lecture, it has a very real significance, is so exceedingly indefinite. Is this a part of the information he received in the ecstatic visions of his exalted intercourse with the risen Lord? That does not appear likely, for this reason; that all St. Paul’s references to this source of his knowledge seem to imply that the instructions he thus received concerned only the special form in which he, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, was to preach the gospel. Did he learn it from the Old Testament? Well, itis implied in the Old Testament; but in such a mode that perhaps only those who bring this idea to the study of its pages are likely to find it there. I rather think that St. Paul in these words uttered a truth, which he in his consciousness found fundamentally necessary, while it was doubtless illustrated and developed by his Christian experience. Indeed the whole tone of the speech on Mars’ Hill is that of one who desires to appeal to first principles. He speaks not as a Jew, but asa man. And he was a man who could not take life easily. He could not live, as the saying is, from hand to mouth. There are some men who appear satisfied with the consciousness that they are alive, and are on the whole enjoying it. But not such aman was St. Paul. He felt driven to seek for some ulterior significance in life, some divine purpose, attainment of which should be the highest goal and perfect bliss of man. And this instinctive impulse found, as he believed, its explanation and its satisfaction in the divine life which Christ awoke in his soul and was awaking in the world. Therefore he says with such confidence that the Most High has made all nations of men that they should seek the Lord. Now this is inspiration undoubtedly ; but it is an inspiration which is open to us all, and which in some degree we all possess, whether we yield to it or not; for it is just

AFTER A FINAL CAUSE. vi the quenchless longing of human nature after a final cause of creation.

These remarks upon St. Paul’s words may illustrate the meaning that we are to attach to the phrase ‘ final cause,’ in this connection. I mean by it such a supreme and comprehensive motive, or purpose, as would give us a rational if only approximate conception of the ultimate significance of creation. Of course our observations are necessarily confined to the part of creation in which humanity is unmistakeably the predominant feature. But whatever satisfies the craving for a final cause here will also suggest the possibility of an analogous motive pervading the whole universe.

Let no one think that because science has no place for final causes therefore there is no place for them in philosophy or religion. As an anatomist, or a botanist, or a geologist, the student may be very right in saying, I have nothing to do with final causes, my only business is with observed appearances and ascertained connections. But as a man he cannot help himself; final causes will obtrude upon him whether he likes it or not. For asa man he not only sees and classifies, but he wistfully thinks and wonders. There are relations between himself and the universe, which no analysis of sensuous observations can exhaust. The starry sky has some nameless grandeur, which no results of mathematical calculation can express. The tender clouds, whose colours he analyses with his prism, speak a language to his heart, which no prismatic chart can interpret. And amongst such incalculable relations between himself and the universe is the wistful longing after inner meaning and ultimate aim, which the enigma of creation always excites in the contemplative soul. Most natural is the artless hymn which represents the young child as appealing to the little star on high and exclaiming, “How I wonder what you are!” So all life long we stand at gaze, the vision expanding from a star to a universe, while still all our cry is of wonder what it is. And this enquiry after what is, includes manifestly a longing after the significance and purpose of appearances; that is, it involves the hunger of the soul for a final cause of creation.

But it is time to show the relation of this to the moral and religious outlook of the age. For, as we have said, the fear is entertained by many, that critical, physiological, and philosophical enquiries all converge on one inevitable goal—Atheism. Well then let us suppose the goal to be reached. Let us imagine the Bible to be regarded, not only as fallible, but as delusive, and God to be given up as a poetic myth. Let us conceive the reign of law so interpreted as to exclude any possible freedom of will; let us assume it established. as the combined triumph of all scientific enquiries, that in every direction the last obtainable result leaves us with centres of force and their vibrations. Does any one think that such a conclusion can ever be regarded as shutting up the mysteries of the universe or closing the avenues of spiritual perspective? Opinions change, but human nature survives; and no decrees of a scientific hierarchy can long hush the questions, what is force, or how is it gathered into centres, and why do they for ever vibrate, and what is the stupendous movement working out? If there is a balance of forces in the universe, why do they not neutralize one another? If there is not, how are we held off from chaos? And is there no meaning in it all, no purpose accordant with mind and heart and conscience in man? Is the universe but a stupendous kaleidoscope, in which forms of beauty tumble together, only to be scattered by the next revolution? If it be so, I am not of that world on which I look through the window of the eye. In this etherial inward world to which I belong, will, purpose, reason, affection, principle reign as supreme all-animating powers. And I, being as Iam, have no part nor lot in that great and terrible wilderness masked. with a shimmering mirage of beauty that rings me round. Nay, I am myself more real than anything without. That desert world is a dream for aught I know; but as for me I live—and Oh for a universal life, that in it I may live and move and have my being! Surely, surely they were right of old who said that life was the beginning and the end of all. And what if after all the forces of which men speak and their vibrations be the signs of some eternal energy of life ?

‘The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains, Are not these, O soul, the vision of Him who reigns? Is not the vision He? though he be not that which He seems?

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams? Speak to Him thou, for He hears, and spirit with spirit can meet, Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”

But it will not need modern poets to give voice to the resurrection joy of faith, There was one of old who to a Hebrew harp uttered words, which may yet express the repentance of a world awaking from a short nightmare of material atheism. ‘‘ So foolish was L and ignorant, I was as a beast before thee. Nevertheless Iam continually with thee; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt gude with thy counsel, and afterward recewe me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there ws none upon earth that I deswre beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God 1s the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.”

I believe then this irrepressible longing after a final cause, after some significance and purpose in creation, which shall have due reference to human nature, will for ever make atheism impossible except as a temporary expedient of suspense, or the paralysis of despair which comes in the darkest hours of times transitional through decay.* For human nature is a part of the universe, and in interpreting the universe it must surely have due weight. If then the hunger after a final cause be as ineradicable from fully developed human nature as the belief itself that the senses really imply an external world, I regard it as a very important indication

* See Appendix Note A on Buddhism as an argument for the possibility of rest in Atheism.

AFTER A FINAL CAUSE. sia that a final cause exists. I do not now say how far it can come into clear consciousness. I do not contend that it can ever be adequately and absolutely apprehended. But I do say that it may hint itself to the spiritual imagination. I do contend that it may give prophetic types of its reality in the noblest moments of this mortal life, as the glory of manly or womanly love may be anticipated in the affections of the child. And if immortality should be the ever growing apprehension of this final cause, that itself is sufficient to make heaven an exhaustless joy, a joy which continually enlarges the power of perception, and for ever exceeds its capacity.

The suggestion which St. Paul makes as to the nature of the final cause of creation is this, that the world was evolved for the purpose of bringing about the communion. of the created spirit with the eternal God. The value of this suggestion will be better understood, when we have considered the degrees and disguises of which that communion is susceptible. Meantime I urge that, like truth and love, this is one of those things which commend themselves to our spiritual perceptions as good and worthy for their own sakes, apart from any other considerations whatever. Nay, every special instance of our joy in truth and love suggests a larger range of such bliss; nor can the imagination once aroused stop short of a possible universe, in which every creature is blessed because consciously true to the divine thought, consciously embraced by and responsive to the divine love. In such a conception, and in such a conception only can we find an ultimate rest for our souls. Give us that, and we find no insuperable difficulty in the long, slow, often painful process of development which leads up to the final issue. For it may well be that degrees and contrasts of finite experience are necessary to the fulness of that issue, and when enshrined therein will explain themselves. Give us that, and it is not even needful for us to imagine that creation, development, conflict, redemption shall ever really cease. A completed universe, a closed heaven, an exhausted mystery may be only an expedient of the mind for facility in embodying the desires of the heart. But those desires in their essential significance are satisfied, if we can dare to conceive of some pinnacle in the throne of God, from which the universe though in eternal flux, is seen to be working out in every newly created part some fresh creature consciousness of the Divine Life.

Though no such comprehensive vision be possible to us now, still there are many hints that the purest and : keenest happiness which existence ever yields us is of the nature of communion with God. When we indignantly revolt from wrong and earnestly stand up for right, the impulse which sustains us is felt to be a triumphant joy. And I know not better how to describe that impulse than by the word loyalty—loyalty to the Supreme Goodness which all in one sense or another, however dimly, feel to be the ultimate law of existence. And in the warmth of this loyalty I recognise the embrace of our souls by God’s purity and love. The very eagerness of science in the pursuit of natural truth receives in my view its real explanation, only when we think of each new discovery as a fresh hint of the eternal light in which all things are open and unconcealed to the consciousness of God. And when the Psalmist in his own rapture at the magnificence of the world aspires to think of the bliss of the Creator in His work— the glory of the LORD shall endure for ever, the LORD shall rejoice in his works’’—I think he suggests the real secret of the strange and deep emotions which are stirred in our hearts by our intercourse with Nature. When we can stand in the midst of God’s beautiful universe, and feel that we love it because He loves it, and that our love is one with His; when we can realize it as living because He lives, nay as being only the transparent veil that moderates His intolerable light ; then we know why every feature of noble scenery has a meaning to the sotil as well as to the eye. . For our hearts are not alone in the universe; they answer through the veil to the life of God. Then we know why the purity of Alpine peaks should touch the heart with aspiration; and why the sweet perspective of a woodland glade should dim the eyes with tears; and why the ocean murmurs of eternity ; and why all sounds of nature seem to wail or sigh, with longing more than sadness. For what is love in God is longing in his creatures. ‘ As forme I will behold thy face in righteousness, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness.”

** The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.”