The essentials of Christianity

Front matter

Class

Book l___

Copyright^

Preface

This book was designed for young people sufficiently advanced to understand, without serious difficulty, discussions in religion and theology embodied in non-technical phraseology. Indeed, in its primary form the treatise consisted of lectures given to successive classes of college students. Recently these have been revised and enlarged. It is our hope that intelligent laymen generally will find the book well adjusted to their antecedents and needs.

The apologetic basis of the book may appear somewhat novel. It is believed, however, that it will invite no unfavorable judgment, since the prominence assigned to the point of view of the comparative study of religions is in line with a widely-felt demand of our age.

The thanks of the author are due to the Methodist Book Concern for permission to use a number of paragraphs which in substance or form approximate to passages con-

vii viii PREFACE

tained in his larger and very differently planned work, designed more especially for professional students of theology, and entitled "System of Christian Doctrine."

Contents

I: CHRISTIANITY AS RELATED TO OTHER RELIGIONS

PAGB

I: Religion Defined and Shown to be Native

CHAPTER I: CHRISTIANITY AS RELATED TO OTHER RELIGIONS I: Religion Defined and Shown to Be Native to

Man

Defined as to its subjective aspect, Religion is belief in a Higher Power, a sense of dependence upon such a Power and an inward attitude toward it of homage or worship. Regarded objectively, religion consists in actions, customs, and institutions which give manifestation to the belief in the Higher Power, to the sense of dependence, and to the attitude of worship. The two aspects united give the rounded view of what is meant by religion.

A substitute for such a definition as the foregoing has recently had some currency. Proceeding from a very specific standpoint certain writers prefer to define religion as simply the

recognition and pursuit of social values. In so doing they undoubtedly give expression to no mean element of truth ; at least, if the Higher Power is construed as the effective head and center of social relations. In its terms, however, the given definition does not necessarily include that range of meaning. It is, therefore, too vague, not to say too narrow, to adequately set forth the idea which men almost universally have expressed under the name of religion.

It is not too much to say that religion is the common property of the race. Man is constitutionally a religious being. One and another so-called religious function may indeed be scarcely more than an external attachment in the case of this or that individual. But religion in general is no external attachment, no artificial adjunct to the life of mankind. It has a deep and permanent spring in the fundamental characteristics and relations of men. Back of all the artificial and arbitrary features which may be pointed out in various systems of religion we are obliged to affirm a native religiousness.

Christianity, then, has this in common with other religions, that it is a manifestation of man's native bent to religion. Whatever superiority it may rightfully claim, it is far from requiring utter disparagement of other religions. The devoted disciple of Christianity is free to recognize in all religions, even in the lowest and poorest, an element of worth. To a greater or less extent they publish man's upward striving and his inalienable sense of connection with higher powers. They are not mere falsities, not mere eccentricities, not mere products of fraud and caprice. A profound sentiment, and one prophetic of a high destiny for man, is discoverable through all the network of their prescriptions and practices, crude and grotesque as these may have been in many instances.

That religion is no chance product in the world, but has rather a perennial source in the depths of human nature itself, is a legitimate induction from the record of history. It is attested, in the first place, by the enormous bulk of religious facts and by the high proportion which these bear to the known works and experiences of the race. One can hardly place his hand upon history anywhere without coming into contact with memorials of religion. They abound in the literature of the world. They are found in the earliest poetry of the Orient as well as in the latest of the Occident. They claim a large place in the achievements of the sculpture and architecture of every age. The spade of the archaeologist uncovers them wherever it brings to light any vestiges of buried civilizations. Philology finds them imbedded in the languages of the world as far back as it can trace human speech toward its primitive source. In short, the further investigation is pushed the more vivid becomes the impression of the force with which religion has wrought as a motive power among men. An eminent writer speaks soberly when he says: "It is the largest and most ubiquitous fact connected with the existence of mankind upon earth." *

The truth that religion is rooted in man's nature is attested not merely by the bulk of religious facts that have been brought to view, but also by lack of a single authentic specimen of a tribe wholly destitute of religion. It is not a little suggestive that no one would think of looking for such a tribe except among men most deeply debased. Evidently a group of men thus conditioned, even if they should be found entirely destitute of religion, would afford no valid proof against the conclusion that human nature provides for religion. As pointing to a standing below the plane of true man-

»John Flske, "Through Nature to God," p. 189.

hood, the religious deficit in them would no more illustrate what is characteristic of man, than does the social deficit in men who flee from society and seek absolute isolation from all their fellows. But it is not necessary to emphasize this point. The tribe without religion has not been found. Supposed examples have failed to endure close scrutiny. It has been discovered that the religion of the savage has been disguised by the poverty and strangeness of his dialect, or hidden by his suspicion and reticence. As has been remarked by a very painstaking investigator of the subject, "Even with much time, and care, and knowledge of language, it is not always easy to elicit from savages the details of their theology. They try to hide from the prying and contemptuous foreigner their worship of gods who seem to shrink, like their worshipers, before the white man and his mightier Deity." 2 That religion was born with man and has been the constant possession of mankind seems to be the common verdict of the great majority of eminent students of religious history and racial peculiarities. Max Miiller, Tylor, Ratzel, Quatrefages, Tiele, Waitz, Gerland, Peschel, and Hoskoff represent the most competent scholarship of

a E. B. Tylor, "Primitive Culture," I, 382.

20 THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIxVNITY

recent times in their expression of the conviction that no races of men can be named which are wholly destitute of religion. 3

The fact that religion is founded in human nature may be regarded, once more, as evidenced by the poor success of various attempts to explain religious phenomena on any other basis. One of the most superficial of these is that which refers all to priestcraft. Doubtless many things in the various religions of the world have been due to the devices of priests. But what has gained currency for their devices? Evidently if they had not had religious people to deal with they could not have effectually controlled their subjects in the name of religion. To suppose a group of men to be able to fasten upon the mass of their fellows, age after age, something purely arbitrary, or without correspondence to inborn needs, is to suppose the incredible. The power of priesthoods, as a factor within the circle of religious beliefs and practices, may have been great; nevertheless, it is obvious to a judicial mind that religion as an interior bent of men has been the greater power, which explains the existence of priesthoods, as well as the appear-

8 Compare F. B. Jevons, "Introduction to the History of Religion" ; G. T. Ladd, "The Philosophy of Religion" ; C. H. Toy, "Introduction to the History of Religions."

ance of various factors and features of religious systems.

A similar line of remark applies to the supposition that fear, viewed as a non-religious feeling, drove men into religion; that being baffled and bruised by the forces of nature, they had recourse to imaginary safeguards. A formula for this theory was given by the Roman writer Statius in the words Primus in orbe timor deos fecit. Now it is to be conceded that fear did work as an incentive and was influential in determining some points of religious practice. But, after all, it was only the partial and subordinate cause. Fear of natural evils has in itself no power to disclose the supernatural or divine and to impart a vital sense of relationship thereto. Supposing an already existing bent to recognize a higher power, then we can see that fear may increase the urgency of appeals in that direction; but we do not see that fear can create the sense of the presence and agency of such a power. Moreover, fear working by itself would make the content of religion to consist solely of means of shelter against unfriendly and malignant powers. But religion has always had a different content from that. It has given place to friendly powers and to the thought of satisf action in fellowship with them. If we may trust the verdict of prominent investigators, this was the case with religion from the start; for they conclude that primitive sacrifices were not so much rites of expiation as rites of fellowship with the object of worship.

Other non-religious causes, which have been appealed to as explaining the rise of religion, must in all sobriety be pronounced equally inadequate. Take for instance the lively impression of natural objects. Undoubtedly it has had much to do in determining the specific direction of the religious bent. Very likely in all the advanced stages of culture it has been a potent force in shaping religious manifestations. But it is equally true that natural objects would never have become religious objects, had it not been for the working of religious needs and impulses. Only the powerful stimulus coming from this source could create and sustain the disposition to translate the objects of sense into symbols and vehicles of the transcendent or divine.

Take, again, the experience of dreams and apparitions. It is not at all incredible that events of this kind have furnished men with objects of religious contemplation, as tending to foster belief in spirits, whether ancestral or non-human. This species of belief, however, would never have furnished the basis for a persistent conviction of vital connection with and obligation toward intangible powers, but for needs and tendencies deeply imbedded in the nature of men. It is important to note that the particular direction of a current is one thing, while the perennial source of the current is quite another thing. Many causes may have shaped the manifestation of religion. The potent cause urging to manifestation so universally and persistently cannot be regarded as anything less than the intrinsic needs and tendencies of the human spirit.

What has been said thus far simply invites to an attitude of appreciative consideration of all religions. If it involves nothing in favor of the special claims of Christianity, it certainly involves nothing adverse to those claims. The fact that man is so fundamentally a religious being that, generally speaking, his nature impels under all conditions to some form of religious faith and practice, is just the kind of basis that Christianity requires to justify its anticipation of world-wide victory. Constitutional indifference to religion might be a fatal barrier to progress ; with the opposition of men who, in the long run, cannot get along without a religion, it may hope to wrestle successfully. The ineradicable longing for religious satisfaction, under such conditions of the world as provide for the free contact of one religion with another, may be expected to bring men — or at least the greater portion of them — ultimately to the religion which most adequately meets the longing, and is most able to meet it under advanced stages of culture.

II: The Tests which Christianity Must Meet in

Order to Establish Its Claim to Universality

and Finality

If the Christian religion is to be made to appear not simply as a religion among religions, but as the religion fitted to become universal and ultimate, grounds for a rational faith in the following propositions need to be afforded: (1) Man, as being constitutionally a religious being, must in the long run have a religion. (2) Christianity is distinctly superior to any other historic religion. (3) The essential truths and spirit of Christianity are so high and perfect that there is no real occasion to harbor the thought of their being improved upon.

To rest the case of Christianity upon the establishment of these three propositions is not merely the dictate of convenience but of right reason as well. What need is there to prove anything more? If men must have a religion, if Christianity meets the religious needs of humanity better than any other historic system, and is moreover so high and perfect in its characteristic truths and spirit that no chance for surpassing them is to be recognized, then unmistakably its claim to universality and finality is solidly based. Further proofs can be waived as unnecessary. There is no imperative demand, for example, to establish a detailed perfection of the Bible. It is enough to know that the Bible excels every other compendium of sacred writings, and records a revelation which supplies in its aggregate result a standard too pure and lofty to be transcended. No more is it requisite to show that the history of so-called Christian peoples has been free from great evils and abuses. It is to be remembered that a people truly Christian in anything like its whole extent has never yet been seen on the face of the earth ; that Christianity has had to contend against the force of human selfishness, passion, and appetite, and therefore has been only imperfectly exemplifled in the history of any nation. Impossibilities are not to be asked of any religion. The best religion conceivable cannot be required to banish in short order all evil from human society, made up as that society is of wayward free agents. What can reasonably be asked of it is, that it should meet the evil with uncompromising opposition, have an inexhaustible power to vitalize the consciences of its votaries, and thus be able to work progressively toward the reign of practical righteousness in all the relations of men.

Of the three propositions mentioned as needing to be established the first has been confirmed by evidences which, we judge, the thoughtful reader will pronounce satisfactory. To the establishment of the second and third propositions the entire line of thought in this treatise will be tributary. That task therefore will not be formally undertaken in this connection. It will be advisable, however, before proceeding further, to furnish a basis for a comparison of Christianity with the non- Christian religions by giving a brief sketch of the main characteristics of the latter. Thus we shall be in condition, as the essential content of Christianity is unfolded in successive chapters, to see the justification of the second proposition, and also be ready with better intelligence to turn our thought to the concluding proposition. Direct attention will be given to these subjects in the concluding chapter.

///: Religions which May Be Supposed to Coinpete with Christianity — Their Merits and Their Defects

As regards religions which have perished from the world it would be a superfluous task to compare Christianity with them. Their inability to maintain themselves is an indication of unfitness for permanent subsistence, and must stand against them till a resurrection to vitality and efficiency has been achieved. Approximately the same may be said of a religion which has descended from its ancient eminence, and been left for a long period with a meager band of followers. This description applies to the Zoroastrian religion, which retains but a handful of adherents in its ancient Persian home and is mainly represented by the Parsis of India, numbering probably less than one hundred thousand.

Corresponding to the contrast between the snow-capped mountains and the sand-wastes of the land which served as its early theater,

Zoroastrianism was a religion largely dominated by a sense of antagonisms. In truth it incorporated a dualistic feature in placing both good and evil back of the world and representing them as partners in its formation. This point of view, as enforcing the need of continuous struggle in order to bring victory to the side of the powers of light and goodness, as opposed to those of darkness and malignity, gave a certain cast of earnestness to the old Persian religion. It must be affirmed, however, that the dualism incorporated with this religion is not adapted permanently to satisfy either thought or feeling. To divide the creative efficiency back of the world into antagonistic portions offends against the philosophical demand for unity, and stands in the way of a serene faith in providence. The biblical picture of a good God making a good world, into which moral evil comes only by creaturely lapse, is not only more cheerful than the dualistic representation ; it affords also a decidedly more consistent basis for moral effort and religious faith. Evil gets too much dignity when it is made to share the throne of the world. No doubt Zoroastrianism makes a certain amend for its dualistic representation of the beginning of things, in that it pictures the final triumph of the good deity. But this outcome is rather dictated by a brave hope than by a logical induction. If evil coexisted with the good in the beginning, it is not easy to provide a well-founded hope for its ultimate displacement. Other defects in Zoroastrianism might be specified, the most noticeable perhaps being the extent to which it fenced around the lives of men with arbitrary rules in its extravagant effort to guard the sanctity of the pure elements, fire, water, and earth.

Of living religions not more than four have a position and content which makes it worth while to compare them with Christianity. These are Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism. That there are elements of worth in each of these religions will not be denied by any fair-minded investigator.

If we turn to the first named, we find very commendable features, especially on the side of its ethical code. Such virtues as reverence, moderation, sincerity, and gentleness are worthily inculcated. The following are characteristic maxims: "It is virtue that moves heaven: there is no distance to which it does not reach. Pride brings loss and humility receives increase." 4 "Do not cherish anger against the obstinate and dislike them. Seek not every quality in one individual. You must have patience, and you will be successful; have forbearance and your virtue will be great." 5 "Always and in everything there should be reverence. Pride should not be indulged; the will should not be gratified to the full; pleasure should not be carried to excess. . . . Do not seek for victory in small contentions; do not seek for more than your share." 6 With its many excellencies the Confucian ethics combines some features which invite criticism, at least from the viewpoint of Christianity. There is some reason, for instance, to charge it with overdoing the very necessary stress upon the obligation of children to parents. Unquestionably this is a high and holy obligation, but in centering the emphasis upon it a certain hazard is incurred of making too little account of those great obligations of the individual soul to itself and to God which may perchance come into competition with parental wishes and ancestral models. Again, Confucianism shares a very common fault of the antique world in its relative disparagement of

* The Shu-King, Part ii, book il § 3. •The Shu-King, Part v, book xxi, § 3. 6 The Li-ki, Book i, sect, i, part i.

women. Under its regime woman attains indeed to high honor as the mother of sons, but not in other relations. Her dignity suffers very appreciable abridgment from the prerogative of husbands in the matter of divorce and of concubinage. It may be noticed also that Confucius stood in contrast with the founder of Christianity in discrediting the obligation to exercise good-will and love toward's one's enemies. At this point he fell below the plane of his contemporary Lao-tse.

The great weakness of Confucianism lies in its lack of any adequate and vitalizing conception of God. In the writings of the sage himself the Supreme Being, recognized in early Chinese thinking under the vague title of "Heaven," appears only as an indistinct object of belief. Some expositors have even questioned whether in the use of Confucius the title stood for a personal subject. Probably, however, there was no positive intention to deny personality. But still the thought of God was left in great indefiniteness. Nor has Confucianism in its subsequent history transcended this relatively empty and powerless notion of Deity. To the mass of its adherents the Supreme Being is the far-off God, a being respected in certain rites periodically celebrated m THE ESSENTIALS OF CHRISTIANITY

by the emperor or highest exponent of the state, but not an object of universal and customary worship. It is to spirits, whether ancestral or non-human, that Confucianists in general are expected to pay most of the homage which they have to offer. The energizing motive which comes from a vital apprehension of the living God is not native to Confucianism. Its own votaries have in fact, to a conspicuous degree, furnished a practical acknowledgment of its deficit on the religious side, in that they have sought satisfaction for their religious needs by borrowing from Buddhism or Taoism.

Buddhism, not less than Confucianism, earns appreciation on the score of golden maxims in its ethical teaching. The former indeed appeals more cogently than the latter to the hearts of men through the element of sympathy and humanitarianism with which, in its original form at least, it was richly endowed. Gautama, the Buddha, or "enlightened one," was in temper a kind of Saint Francis, living in the sixth century before the Christian era (560-480). He did not, it is true, partake of the mystical devotion so deeply characteristic of the Italian philanthropist; but his heart overflowed with the same loving compassion.

Profoundly impressed with the miseries of human existence, he sought out for himself the way of escape, and then made it his life work to enlighten his fellow men respecting this way. Whatever may be thought of his total conception of salvation, it must be granted that his teaching embraced elements of very considerable worth. He ran clear of the exaggerated ceremonialism and sacerdotalism with which India had begun to be burdened. He emphasized the responsibility of the individual for effecting his own emancipation. He strongly enforced the demand for self-control and self-discipline. He fostered the spirit of tolerance and taught the duty of universal benevolence and gentleness. This duty could hardly be put more strongly than it is in various Buddhist texts. Of the one who is in the true way it is affirmed, "He lets his mind pervade one quarter of the world with thoughts of pity, sympathy, and equanimity, and so the second, and so the third, and so the fourth. And thus the whole wide world above, below, around, and everywhere, does he continue to pervade with heart of pity, sympathy, and equanimity, far-reaching, grown great, and beyond measure." 7 A still more intense ex-

T Tevigga Sutta, chap. iii.

pression of the obligation of universal good-will appears in the following: "As a mother at the risk of her life watches over her own child, her only child, so also let everyone cultivate a boundless friendly mind towards all beings." 8

On the other hand, Buddhism viewed as a religious system exhibits very pronounced defects. In the first place, as originally promulgated, it fell far short of doing justice to the thought of God. Though it may have mentioned supernatural beings, it postulated for them no practical relation to men. They appear as of no more account than the celestial ghosts to which Epicureanism gave a verbal acknowledgment. No creative function was assigned to them, they were included in the sphere of the changeable, and in occasional texts were unfavorably compared with the man who has attained the stage of enlightenment. But so great a stretch of negation could not long survive. Buddhists, no more than other men, were able permanently to quench the sense of dependence and the impulse to worship. The historic Buddha himself was turned into a veritable god, and functions coextensive with the universe were assigned to

8 The Sutta-Nipata. Mettasutta.

him. Potential or prospective Buddhas in the heavenly sphere were recognized as possessed of divine rank. This development in Buddhist belief was especially characteristic of the Mahayana teaching, which had much currency in India by the close of the first Christian century, and gave the type very largely to northern Buddhism.

In the second place, Buddhism is subject to criticism as providing an imperfect ground for the consciousness of sin. Its stress is upon pain rather than upon sin proper. The problem with which it deals is not so much, how to eliminate moral contamination, as how to get release from suffering, how to escape from the weary round of transmigrations and the entail of misery which passes over from one incarnation to another and threatens to be perpetual. Detachment from the ever-whirling wheel of changeful being and entrance into rest is the consummation on which it lays the maximum stress. That it should fail of a proportionate emphasis on the demerit of sin was in a way dictated by the scanty deference which it paid at the start to the thought of God. A vital recognition of the holy and all-seeing One, who cannot look upon sin with allowance, is a logical antecedent of a proper impression of the exceeding sinfulness of sin.

Again, Buddhism is chargeable with a conspicuous breach of consistency. According to its theory there is no abiding substance, ceaseless flux being characteristic of everything. What is spoken of as human personality is a mere complex, subsisting by the juxtaposition of its constituents, the so-called skandhas. As death sunders the constituents and breaks up the complex, the natural inference would be that personal subsistence does not continue beyond this life. Yet Buddhism often speaks as though it were the same subject which, failing to quench desire in this life, must be reincarnated and bear in another form the evil inseparable from desire. A sort of intellectual sleight of hand seems to be practiced at this point. It is as though a candle in expiring should ignite a second candle, and this second candle should then be identified with the preceding. To identify the subject of embodied life, which is dissolved in death, with the succeeding subject is quite arbitrary. But if the identity of the two is denied, an inquiry evidently arises as to the justice of loading on to the new subject the debt of the old, and of requiring the former through a life of pain to work off the entail.

Once more the moral ideal of Buddhism is marred by undeniable imperfections. It runs into onesidedness both in the direction of asceticism and of quietism. The society founded by Gautama was a monastic society, and, while provision was made for a lay wing, the implication of the Buddhistic teaching was, that to reach the ideal character and to gain a place in the rank of "wise men" belongs only to monks. Gautama himselfj is credited with placing these words upon the lips of the believer: "Full of hindrances is household life, a path defiled by passion: free as the air is the life of him who has renounced all worldly things. How difficult is it for the man who dwells at home to live the higher life in all its fullness, in all its purity, in all its bright perfection! Let me then cut off my hair and beard, let me clothe myself in the orange-colored robes, and let me go forth from a household life into the homeless state!" 9

On the side of quietism the Buddhistic ideal is decidedly radical. It emphasizes the need of a total suppression of desire and aspiration, setting this forth indeed as the supreme obliga-

"Tevigga Sutta, § 47.

tion and achievement. Only thus, it is contended, can the bond to rebirth be broken and the chain of miserable existence be brought to an end; only thus can the deep calm, the perfect rest of nirvana be attained. In more than one text the reaching of the goal in nirvana seems to imply a veritable extinction of the self. Thus we read: "All the Buddhas of the past ages, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, by their wisdom enlightening the world, have all gone out as a lamp. All the Buddhas yet to come will perish in the same way." 10 The sagte, "after having revealed perfect enlightenment and led many kotis of beings to perfect rest, himself will be extinguished like a lamp when the oil is exhausted." X1 Statements like these may assign a more emphatic meaning to nirvana than has been universally, or even in a majority of instances, characteristic of Buddhistic thinking, especially in the northern regions. But it is undeniable that in its general tenor Buddhism has given great prominence to the idea of a passionless existence, a state in which all desire and effort are quenched. And herein it has exposed itself to a double criticism. On the one hand the legitimacy of its assumption that