Origins and faith; an essay of reconciliation

Front matter

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Preface

Anyone who comes into frequent contact with the religious mind of the day must recognise the difficulties lying behind that working Faith which suffices for most of us. It is not that there is an active opposition to religion; it is that Christianity has ceased to provide for many a sufficient answer to the insurgent challenges of modern thought. Although much splendid work has been done by way of reconciliation, the note has been too apologetic, the vindication too partial. The present need is to find a reasonable basis for belief which shall bring into practical agreement the religious and scientific systems, preserving at the same time the essential truth of great traditions. It would indeed be a satisfaction to realise that I have made some contribution to this end.

I have intentionally avoided loading the book with references and footnotes, so that it may be read J more simply and usefully.

I acknowledge gratefully the assistance rendered by my friend, the Rev. F. A. Russell, of the King’s Weigh House Church, London, in the work of revising for the press. My son. Dr. Arthur Compton- Rickett, has given me similar help.

J. Compton-Rickett.

Lancaster Gate, W.

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I. The Problem

The present position

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Christianity in simplest terms .

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The Universe according to Modern Science

The original impulse .

The Unknowable

The Agnostic Philosophy .

The Pantheistic explanation

Is a Concordat possible? .

Christianity as ethics .

Personality and limitation .

II. At the Back of

THE Beginnings

Frontiers of knowledge

Out of the void ....

The secret of eternal motion .

The Peace of God

The entrance of Evil .

The nature of Evil .

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Nature non-moral

The patience of the Workman .

A theory of Evil ....

Evil not Goodness disguised

First Cause has no claim upon affection .

III. A Religion

The gospel of Naturalism .

OF Humanity

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Patriotism — a religion

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The Social instinct

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The idealism of Ethics

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Intellectuality and morality not concurrent . . . 52

Naturalism and Determinism 54

Naturalism becomes irrational 56

The curve of life 56

Idealism demands religion 58

IV. The Faith before the Faith

A common Faith

Pluralism and Monotheism

The friend unseen

The multi-consciousness of God ....

The area of Providence

Spiritual endowment

V. The Power of God in Prayer

Objections to prayer

The instinct of prayer

Prayer as a fighting force

The experience of prayer

Prayer an aid to sincerity'^

Mechanical prayer . . . .

The real answer to prayer

Congregational prayer

Meditation

VI. Second Life o| Immortality

Second life and immortality contrasted .

Spiritualism

Consciousness and individuality ....

Conditions of second life

Argument from moral government .... Protestantism and probation

VII. Redemption through Atonement

Jewish ritual and Christian Faith .... ChrisPs doctrine of the blood

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The older evangelical doctrines 108

Gospels and Epistles contrasted 108

A cosmic view of Redemption . . . . . .110

Distrust of the world — a half truth . . . . .118

Christ upon His Cross 114

VIII. Inspired Scriptures

Growth of authority lig

The popular verdict of the Canon 122

Relation of the Old Testament to Christianity . . .128

The elect people 125

Canonicity a question of survival . . . . .126

Early Church and New Testament Canon . . . 127

Discriminating use of Scriptures 129

Need for a revised Canon 180

Exaggerated difficulties of Scripture . . . .188

Theological relation of Old and New Testaments . .184

The value of myths 185

Spiritual impulse to Evolution 186

IX. Jesus to His Contemporaries

Christ continuously discussed 14S

Palestine a world center 144

Messianic ideal 146

The mistress of the world 148

The baptism of John 150

Conflicting ideal of Jesus 150

Judgment of patriotic Pharisee 152

X. Jesus and the Miraculous

Are miracles possible.^ Igg

Can morals and miracles be separated . . . -164

Significance of Resurrection 165

Witness of St. Paul 157

Jesus’ estimate of miracles 159

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The zone of miracles 170

Illusion and deception 172

XI. Jesus to Himself

Gro's^h of the divine consciousness 177

The discipline of delay 178

The crisis of baptism 180

Literary style of Jesus 182

Theories of Temptation 183

Suggested form of Temptation 185

The fateful hour 189

The discipleship igo

Person greater than message ipi

XII. Jesus to the World

Christ and the Creeds 195

Christ’s doctrine of Sonship 196

The Apostles and sacrifice 198

Influence of Alexandria 199

Varying testimony to Person of Jesus . . . .200

Broader interpretation of the Creeds . . . .201

Miracle of Christ’s Personality 201

Christ limits Himself to His Church .... 203

Miracle of the Nativity 204

XIII. Jesus Christ in His Church.

Brevity of ministry 209

Primacy of Peter 211

St. Paul’s theory of the Church 213

The living Presence .216

Duty of the Church to children 220

Socialism and the Church 221

XIV. The Missionary Work op the Church

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The first missionary ideal .231

Modern missions 233

The claims of the Asiatic 235

Two aspects of mission work 236

Should the missionary re-state Christianity . . . 238

The work of the future 241

XV. Christianity in the Social Order

The Church and the world 245

Christianity and war 246

Dangers of arbitration 248

The City of God 248

Economic warfare 249

Can the Church intervene? 253

What can be done? 258

XVI. Some Criticisms and a Conclusion

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O NCE shift the centre of gravity in the consciousness of a nation, or in the thought of an individual, and far-reaching consequences will follow. To superficial observation nothing may have been changed; the old life apparently is fiowing in its accustomed channels. But the ideal is certain to make its own history. The Jew and the Puritan have both graven their story deeply on their respective countries through the mystic fervour of their faiths. For Religion is at once unifying and impulsive to a national life. It is worth many army corps. How far will the future of the British peoples be affected by the exchange of ideals in process under our very eyes? For we are witnessing at present a strong reaction from the familiar forms of rehgion. To the upper classes an emotional faith means the fiag and the country; to the rest of the nation, comfort, a common satisfaction with life. Our teachers are perplexed, and our churches, confused or indifferent, are failing in numbers. The indifference, however, is more affected than real. The old landmarks are disappearing; the sea has already fiooded many of the famihar fields. We hear the moan of the waters, a sobbing uncertainty, where formerly there was firm ground, a foothold for belief. Much more is threatened, and our apol- 13 ogists have abandoned those ancient earthworks which protected vulnerable places, and are disputing amongst themselves how much more should voluntarily be surrendered to the ever-advancing pressure of an insistent criticism.

How do we stand to-day? Having broken with the traditional teaching, we are driven to dispense The present with the old f ormul[E. The battles Position. fought during the middle of the past century are as much out of date as the Wars of the Roses. New fields of contest have been forced upon us; new weapons have to be employed. The armouries which furnished us for the old contests are now little better than theological museums. Men and women no longer go through fife tormented by the dread that they have committed the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. Like the early Hellenist disciples, they have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. Are we, however, called upon to make a rag fair of our theological clothing and conventions ? Attenuation of belief is not the same thing as reformation. A science multiplies as it proceeds from its root to its branches. Theology is bound to follow in the same course. Retreat will not deliver it from having to reconsider its first principles. It is a case in which “ the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence ” and the violent must take it by force. Christianity has fallen dumb before the mysteries of life. It is not enough to mutter the old comfortable formulse, that God is too wise to err, too good to be unkind. We must know more than this.

We cannot expect the Churches to be refilled if our worship be addressed to a Deity about Whose personality we have doubt ; or to One Who governs the world by fixed laws and general benevolence. The intelligent teacher is affected by the tacit demands of the intelligent hearer. The scientific training of to-day compels a man to justify his professional knowledge. No wonder that he endeavours to apply the same method to Religion. The meditations of a fairly-cultured preacher about the hopeful possibilities of the life beyond will not claim the interested attention of his audience. In all directions churches are marking time, waiting for a restatement of the Faith in an atmosphere of modernity, but finding that eveiy such attempt so far has diminished the volume of the teaching, and weakened its practical utility.

The position of the Christian teacher to-day is not an easy one. He finds that Science, insolent with good feeding, disdains to give him help. He has received his theology much in the way that we all accept the fundamental truths of a science. He presumes a general acquaintance with those arguments which have hitherto served to buttress his creed. He assumes that the generations of experts who have built up the Christian theology are sufficient for its support. If there are ominous signs of settlement in the building, he will leave the work of shoring up to the scholar. But an age which has produced so many theological experts has failed to secure unanimity amongst them, and the conscientious teacher is therefore compelled to become a critic and a judge sorely against his own wish. The prevaihng atmosphere of Scepticism is around him. Whatever judgment he propounds can only be upon a balance of probability, and therefore must prove but a temporary resting-place for his own faith, and for his public teaching. He cannot be expected to go to the stake on behalf of such provisional truth. Martyrdom would appear ridiculous if after consummation it might be shown that the persecutor was really nearer the truth than the one who had suffered.

In simplest terms, let us consider the teaching of Christianity as contrasted with those philosophical

Christianity in systems which Confront it as

simplest terms, competitors and alternatives. If neither Christianity nor the other competing philosophies offer a satisfactory solution of the phenomena of human existence, it is possible that a closer comparison of all may contribute some better interpretation.

Christianity adopted the Hebrew authorities as to the beginnings of things, and assumed an almighty Creator and moral Ruler of the Universe, immanent in His creation by way of operation, and transcending it as a self-conscious Power. This Faith explained that the world was originally created for goodness, but that Sin entered and perverted the purpose of the Creator. In order to save man from the consequences of Sin, the Son of God, the eternal Word, the second person of the triune Godhead, appeared upon earth as Jesus of Nazareth. After three years of public ministry Jesus was crucified by the Roman Governor of Judaea, rose from the dead on the third daj^ appeared to His disciples on many occasions, and was visibly received into the skies. He ever lives at the right hand of His Father, making intercession for men, comforting them with His presence and restoring them to God. He committed His gospel to a society called the Church, which He promised to teach, and therein to dwell. He appointed certain ceremonies as sacraments, symbols, or channels of grace. He promised to return, either in vision or in bodily form, and has prepared a place in heaven for all those faithful to Him.

On the other hand, we are assured by modern Science that the world was not originally made in a better condition than at present, universe

but that it has been the scene of according to constant development, through modem Science, long ages, both before and since the arrival of man. One type of life has been evolved from another by laws whose operations can still be found in the world to-day. Instead of an ideal condition from which man, through his own folly, has fallen, the human being has been rising from lower types of existence to higher. Particularly during the time of his developing consciousness has he availed himself of natural law to improve and extend his own knowledge and powers. These laws, the survival of the fittest, adaptation to environment, sexual preference, are, in the opinion of one school, sufficient to account for the introduction of an intelligent and governing race into a world of sentient hfe. This school argues that nothing has happened on this planet differing, except in detail, from what has occurred in other parts of the universe, and that the birth of a world and the cry of a new-born babe belong to one and the same organised and inter-related system of bfe. To these interpreters the Universe is no longer the mystery that it was to our forefathers of even a century ago. The immense distance, the millions of years, are after all measurable and comprehensible. The groups of stars and nebular systems follow ordained courses across the heavens. They have been identified, called by their names, and the area in which they move, however stupendous, is consequently limited. Beyond, there is an unfathomable darkness in which no stars are revealed.

The genesis of each system has been demonstrated. Its first condition is that of a gaseous cloud. In that cloud he sleeping all form, colour, and hfe, as we understand them. It is composed of minute atoms perpetually in motion. There is a mutual attraction between the atoms which tends to draw them into a nucleus. This original energy, or kinetic motion, in turn creates thermal motion, or heat, a source of light and further movement. From this revolving centre are thrown off, in the process of coohng and contracting, globular masses, which in their turn shrink to a less fluid condition, and become attendant planets of the parent body. This divisive force sometimes continues until the planet in its turn sets free smaller masses which accompany it in its orbit, a little court of moons or firefly satellites. The whole system with its central sun is moving on its own account through space. At a certain point in the cooling of the globe individualised life appears, and, taking the earth as an example, may be developed to a remarkable degree. The original heat of these bodies tends to dissipate in space. The greater part of the heat of the sun is diffused recklessly. Only a little of it serves to nurture the planets that respond to parental attraction. Ultimately this heat will become exhausted, and the whole solar system must then shrivel into dead cinders, a funeral procession rolhng through space, unless by chance contact with some live system they be awakened to renewed activity. One theory reports the final fate of the whole universe to be a reduction to dumb nothingness, a cemetery of dead worlds. Another suggests with more probabihty that the lost heat of one system is bound to be reahsed elsewhere, and that death and life are always progressing concurrently in different parts of the wide heavens.

There still remains the question : What is at the back of the beginnings? How came motion into being? Who gave the mighty foot- The Original ball the first kick-off? Or if there impulse, be no first or last, by what power is this variety of life evolved and maintained? The knowable is that which our senses report, our consciousness remarks, and our reason assumes as the startingground for all deduction and conclusion. But we know that our senses are limited, and that much lies beyond their cognisance. We cannot be sure that a thing exists in reality as it appears to us. We are necessarily restricted to phenomena, and

are therefore lustified in assuming

, , . , . 1 1 • 1 1 The Unknowable,

something lying behind these phenomena to which we must attach the name of the

Unknowable. First cause can only be the entrance into the finite and comprehensible of that which previously belonged to the infinite and incomprehensible. Therefore, whether we begin with the Christian or with the scientific theory of life, we must admit that the infinite lies beyond both. The moment we attempt to define we limit. Christianity brings out of that infinite a Being to Whom it attributes quality, form, expression, or He could not be a personal God. It proposes to ascribe to Him eternity and infinity; but it finds that these are simply names which do not add to knowledge, and it is therefore compelled to fall back upon homelier illustrations in order to embody the idea of a supreme Being of purity, love, and goodness. The more homely the illustration becomes the closer it draws us to Him, the deeper our love for Him. Christianity therefore presents for our worship a Being interpreted to us by the terms of human relationship, but it insists that tliis Being, allmse, all-good, all-powerful, is also infinite and eternal, the primal cause behind all things. In so doing, Christianity commits itself to an admission that from this First Cause both Good and Evil must have come. Yet it dare not assign to God the activities of Evil. It therefore retires upon a theory that God permits Evil for some good and temporary purpose unknown to us. This explanation, however, will fail under closer examination, as we shall show later on. We may here interpolate: Why are we called upon to worship a First Cause? To whom should we address that worship? It is unknowable. It cannot consist of one single personality. For where there is no circumference there cannot be a centre. Personality, as we understand the term, must always mean a separation of a part from the whole. If we offer worship to the unknowable First Cause we are bound to recognise both Good and Evil in Him, and our reverence therefore ceases to have moral value. So we may conclude that this personal Deity, gracious and lovable, must be a product of that First Cause, and not coincident with it. We therefore claim from Christianity the admission of the Unknowable lying behind its doctrine of God. We find in other faiths the same admission, either stated or imphed; “ the nameless That ” underlying the Brahminic system of deities, the Moira at the back of the Greek theogony.

The Agnostic philosophy declines to accept this personal idea. The Spencerian section of it indeed admits the possibility of direction. The Agnostic of sympathetic assistance in devel- Philosophy, opment along the lines of law, but, taking the phenomena of the world for what they are worth, that section refuses to affirm that such a Deity, whether uni-personal or multi-personal, can be regarded as a moral being. It would report Him as true to His purposes, hut non-moral as to the conditions under which those purposes are effected. He is careful of mankind, so far as the type is concerned, possibly of an individual here and there, but He has nothing to do with the weak and down-trodden. As He is only known to Science through the phenomena of nature, it can merely recognise in Him such qualities as belong to the world through which He manifests Himself. But this admission of the Spencerian school is only a guarded thought, and its definite conclusions resolve themselves into a theory of force behind phenomena of whose nature we are ignorant, and which can only be referred to the sphere of the Unknowable. The characteristic of this system is that it takes the phenomena of the world as it finds them, reduces their motions to intelligible order, and declines to advance a step beyond scientific demonstration.

A third interpretation of natural phenomena is the presence of an all-pervading spirit in the uni-

The Pantheistic verse, and coincident with it. It explanation. refuses to assume any personality of that spirit other than is expressed through a partial intelligence of wliich man is the one instance really known to us. All evolutionary movement, development, and power are due to the manifestation in a higher degree of this spirit blindly seeldng to express itself more fully in the universe. In this way the Pantheist anticipates the triumph of Good, the abolition of pain and wrong. Only by means of suffering can the universe attain to perfection. But as this system also implies the theory of infinite extension in space and time beyond the limits of our universe it falls by its very nature within the sphere of the Unknowable. It shares also with the Agnostic and Spencerian theory in the frank admission that such a spiritual Being or force must be non-moral, because it condones sin as a by-product in its evolutionary process. We have, therefore, one denominator common to all three systems : Christian, Agnostic, and Pantheistic

— the Unknowable, ever shrouded from human intelligence, but from which issue the beginnings of things.

No efforts to re-state Christianity in the terms of modern thought have proved to be satisfactory. Attempts have been made to effect is a Concordat a compromise by modifying Chris- possible ? tianity in deference to scientific conclusions, but the compromise has been confined to one side. Philosophy has conceded nothing. When the Christian demands to know whether we could imagine a supreme goodness if our ideal were not capable of realisation, the scientist points to the evil, pain, and misery of the world, and enquires whether these are consistent with a conception of an all-powerful personal Goodness.

Finding a doctrinal concordat to be impossible, the reconcilers of Religion and Science are driven to propound an ethical system from Christianity as which the supernatural and the mi- Ethics, raculous are altogether eliminated. Men have lost their grip of theology. It has ceased to be real to them. The growth of Christian Socialism is largely due to the fact that it is a live problem. This is, however, a proposal to reduce Christianity from a cosmic mystery to an earthly betterment, and to leave the riddle of life unsolved. It proposes to introduce equality of distribution with grace before meat. But this is to exchange a theology for a sociology. Such is not the secret of that Faith before which the Paganism of Northern Europe prostrated itself, and to which the Hellenic philosophies became pliant. It was

24 > only a virile faith which could have appealed to energetic and progressive races. It never accepted defeat, for it always stirred with new hfe on the third day after a crucifixion. It was perpetually rising again, “ spoiling principalities and powers, and making a show of them openly.” It was ready to lose its life in order to find it. And if it sometimes hurried through the world for the sake of the journey’s end — like we moderns, who forget the landscape in the motor rush — ^it was for ever reaching forward to a hope beyond, a consolation and a glory yet to come.

We therefore arrive at the conclusion that a personal God — by which term we include a Being

Personality and of Supreme Goodness^ — cannot be limitation. absolutely powerful. Nor can He be identified with the greater universe beyond us. If, however, we adopt the view that the God of our universe, though apparently all-powerful in relation to our humanity, has yet limitations of existence imposed upon Him, we secure His moral ascendency through diminishing His responsibihty. As He is a great Outcome of First Cause, but not that Cause in Himself, we must attribute not to Him, but to other sources in the Unknowable, the presence in the universe of that Evil which conflicts with His benevolence and runs counter to His goodness. We shall endeavour to urge this theory as a solvent to certain difficulties confronting Christianity. Assuming, therefore, such a divine Being, whence came He, and under what conditions are we related to Him?

In applying these principles to religious ideas before we attempt to construe them in Christianity, we are arrested for a moment in face of the mystery of all beginnings, and that mystery of mysteries — the evolution of a personal God. And at this point we are challenged to do without Him, to substitute for this divine relationship the gospel of Naturalism, a religion of humanity, which declines all spiritual phenomena. If it can be proved that this will neither satisfy the emotions, nor explain the difficulties which beset the intellect, we have next to ascertain how far we can discover in human experience a natural religion common to all time and race. For it is certain that Christianity cannot exist apart from antecedent religious ideas of worldwide application; and these — second life, prayer, a redemptive power in human experience — concern humanity as a whole. If the theory we are attempting to establish can give new significance to these, we shall be better fitted to deal with the questions of the miraculous and with the revelation of God through prophetic inspiration. And if we interpret the person and teaching of Jesus the Lord under the same principles we shall follow more clearly His influence through the Church into the world, modifying the political conditions of the State and fulfilling the most ancient faiths in the terms of His own Real Presence.

II

C HRISTIANITY looks for a further explanation to a revelation to come. Science anticipates a development of knowledge, but never expects to escape from the undetermined. She places man, a mere speck in the infinity of space, between an immeasurable past and an immeasurable future. She dechneS Frontiers of to search for an intelligible Cause in Knowledge, all causation, and has no satisfactory interpretation of the conflict between Good and Evil. But we must not regard the Unknowable as unworthy of curiosity or exploration. Sea and land are not constant quantities, but are continually in process of adjustment. There are ever extending peninsulas of enquiry into that vast ocean. The things that we formerly assumed to be certainties may have to be surrendered to the Unknowable, and fresh acquisitions of knowledge rise like dim shapes out of the night to grow into greater distinctness. Existing impressions of time and space prevent our comprehension of infinitude and eternity, but this incapacity does not preclude our adventurous quest into the Unknown.

If we assume the appearance of a creative Being of perfect hohness and goodness — God blessed for evermore — we must also assume that He emerged 29 from that antecedent totality in which exist the beginnings of all life. In entering time and space as a personal existence He becomes finite and limited. Such an evolution of God involves dissociation from aU imperfection, a separation from anything which, under the primal conditions of the Unknowable, may have shared existence with evil.

Out of the void appears this vast Personality. How He came we know not. With what sublimity

... of struggle He separated Himself

Out of the Void. „ .

from the antecedents, one or many,

we have no record, and cannot expect to have. It may be that after the lightnings, the thunderings, and the trumpet sounds, which typified the stmggle, it was a still small voice that proclaimed the advent of the Maker of our universe. He came to work within the broad arena of His own future cosmos; but although He Himself was perfect in goodness and had cast back the assaults of Evil, He could not secure the boundaries of His own sphere of action from the intrusion of other influences out of the Unknowable. The material upon which He works is part of that primal mass, the embryo of all energy, pliant to His dominant will and idea, but bound by inherent laws characteristic of it.

Everlasting motion is the last word of physical science. Break up matter into its constituent The Secret of atoms, and within each atom there Eternal motion. a Still Smaller unit, a whirling electron. Change, progression, retrogression, the dance of life and of death proceed. There is no rest, no halting place, either in the clash of atoms or in the march of worlds. Even when life leaves an individual organism it is immediately crowded with the busy housebreakers, who hack to pieces the waste material in order that it may be worked up elsewhere. Whence comes this perpetual motion? Is that activity due to a continual struggle between the forces of cosmos and of chaos? For planets flung from the parent sun continue to rotate, and that peace which passeth all understanding is not an arrest of power but a co-ordination of its forces. So that we dare not even attribute immobility to God, as if it were a characteristic of Goodness. For Goodness tends to ordered production of peace through a regular distribution of motion. Harmony is evoked to replace clashing wills and disorderly efforts. A bird is said to be sleeping on the air when the vibrations of its wings are too minute to be detected. The motion of a child’s spinning-top is so rapid as not to be noticed by the eye when the hum dies into silence. Travellers in a balloon may imagine that they are stationary, when a piece of paper would show them that they are either rapidly ascending or descending.