The theology of civilization

Front matter

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Contents

CHAPTER. PAGE.

I. The Eealm of Doubt .... 1

II. The Moral Structure op the

Introduction

Ik 1897 I published a little book, " The Coming People," which received a very kindly and appreciative welcome from many readers. I tried to interpret the movements of modern life, in the only way in which they seem capable of an intelligible understanding, into the terms of a divine universe. As one who had begun his thinking as a sceptic and without a hopeful temperament, I boldly avowed my most serious and persistent conviction that the world is good and not bad, that life is abundantly worth living, that man is marching the way of a great and beautiful destiny.

The conviction of optimism, in the face of all the facts that seem to many minds

VI INTBODUCTION,

difficult to adjust, grows out of a foundation and structure of thought. This thought, as it has come to me, has seemed so interesting, so persuasive, so inspiring and helpful that I now venture to publish it, in the hope that what has helped one man may be of equal interest and service to others. / Perhaps there was never a time since man began to think when the problems of life for the individual, for society, for the State, for the future of humanity, seemed more tremendous than they appear at the close of the nineteenth century, as we take a long look ahead into the new times. There is seething unrest; there is doubt of the sanctions of religion ; there is a sense of coming change ; there is suspicion that premises and foundations, once unquestioned, are now perhaps undermined ; there is challenging of existing institutions — social, economical, ecclesiastical. Are the present institutions such as the world will continue to find use for? There is dread mingled with hope. What possible revolutions may not impend,

INTEOB UCTIOJSr. VU

setting the old order aside ? The current forms of religion count millions of votaries. How firm a grip have they upon men's hearts and consciences ? Do they succeed in giving weary men rest, comfort, and inspiration ? How far do they content and satisfy thoughtful minds ? How strong a leverage do they offer for ethical and social uplifting? Is religion losing its hold upon the modern world ? Is that most noble of all forms of religion, Christianity, proving inadequate to new needs, intellectual and humanitarian? Or, rather, is man about to take a new grip upon the substance of religion? Is he dissatisfied with the husks, because a new appetite for reality is now possessing him ?

These are great questions. Many are asking them. Who is so shallow as not to care how they are answered ? Who imagines that it makes no difference in the actual lives of men, in their conduct, in their sense of values, in their peace of mind, in their happiness, courage, and cheerfulness, in the

Vm INTRODUCTION.

subsoil of their lives, in their friendships and their patriotism, how these questions are answered, whether in positive or negative terms ? Who can dream that the man out of whose life the sense of a living God or the hope of immortality has passed away can be the same as the man who, surveying all life with fearless eyes, rests his soul on a mighty and satisfactory conviction that

'* God 's in his heaven And all 's well with his world " ?

This book is sent out in the faith that many readers will be sure to care for the momentous subjects which our age is set to confront and solve. There can be no sound political, social, or economical structure that does not rest on a religious foundation. Upon a score of puzzling problems — about the suffrage, about rights and liberties, about the treatment of the men of black skins and brown skins, about colonies and dependencies, about the place and functions of labor unions, about education, about prisons

and crime, about temperance and the future of the home — we shall not only be likely to build after more enduring plans for having a foothold upon the far-reaching lines of a religious foundation, but, what is even more important, we shall be sure to come to every one of these practical problems with a certain temper and attitude that we could not bring to them without a religion. These questions are to be solved in an atmosphere of courage, hope, confidence, and a large humanity. The shadows around them are dissipated in the light that shines out of a genuine faith in God. The shadows darken in a world where no religion is.

My earliest thinking about religion started with a conviction that seems to me like an axiom. It is, that just so far as religion has any value, it cannot fear the most searching and candid inquiry. How can any reality be hurt by men's questions ? Do we fear the test of the assayer's retort for our gold ore? Do we shrink from the art critic's examination of a genuine masterpiece? Do we

X INTRODUCTION.

need a lawyer's special plea to justify our love for our mothers?

Surely no man understands any subject of human interest and importance unless he knows all its sides and aspects. He cannot be a good engineer without knowing the possibilities of mischief and destruction that lie in his engine and in the force of steam. He cannot be a good pilot and know nothing of the reefs at the entrance to the harbor. As the old proverb says, ''Everything has two handles." How can I be sure that I hold the thing by the right handle till I have taken pains to see what the other handle will do ? How can a man be permanently happy as long as there remains a supposed skeleton in any dark closet of the house of his thought ? What is right ? What is true ? What view takes in all the facts ? These are the questions of the lover of truth. Human action need not be any less earnest, humane, and efficient after once we have shaped our course by asking these questions.

INTRODUCTION. XI

Religion is like every other subject of human thought. What is there against which a plausible case may not be made out? What course of practical conduct is there against which objections may not be urged? There is a very wretched ''handle " by which the mind may take up the problem of the world. I hold that we do not know the world till we have taken it by this handle. I take the religious handle, because having tried the other, I find it impossible to hold.

The fact is, men are far more religious than they know. If religion were fear or superstition, we should have to own that the world is outgrowing it. But in that deeper sense of the word "religion," in which it means a universal relation, binding men together and urging them towards unknown ranges of higher development, in which it stands for the perennial sanctions of morality, in which it distinguishes right from wrong and never lets man off from truth and duty — in this sense there is a native religion in every sane an(J intelligent nian. It is my wish in this

Xll INTRODUCTION.

little book to show how the higher thought of religion is emerging to-day from the childish vagaries and superstitions of ignorant times. The religion of the great individual thinkers has passed upward through a process of development. The mind of the race is beginning now to pass up through the same process of growth. The growth surely is not from a childish religion to no religion at all. Normal growth should proceed from the religion of children to the religion of grownup men. I believe that any unprejudiced person who cares to look at all the considerations can come to no other conclusion.

I have written for busy men and women in a busy world. I have therefore endeavored to put the greatest thoughts, the ripe fruitage of the thinking and living of many generations, into the compass of a little book. I do not dare to call this my own thinking. I have listened to the voices of a noble company of thinkers and teachers. What is any modern man but the inheritor of the treasured wisdom of ages ? And yet

the more transparently clear this wisdom is, the more easy it becomes to express its essence in a single volume.

Truth, indeed, is always the simplest expression of a fact or a relation ; the most natural approach to truth must be the most straightforward — it is only the cause of error which needs circumlocution and ingenuity of defence ; whatever is true, being, as it were, in the grain of nature, bears with it all manner of familiar and typical illustrations. Error is out of line with other things. Truth is rich in its likenesses; it ought, therefore, to be easy to set forth ; it belongs to the structure of order and beauty. Why should not, therefore, the grandest of all subjects be made attractive and interesting ? What have we to do except to describe in the simplest terms those things whose great proportions have already filled our minds with admiration ? What if we might get more credit in certain quarters by the methods of a profound obscurity? Our business is not to get credit or praise ;

XIV INTRODUCTION.

it is merely to tell as many as possible what we see to be true. Are not life itself, and its grand elements, duty, conscience, love, as simple as they are profound?

I am aware that it is venturesome to use the word '' theology " in my title. Men may be interested in religion, but can they be interested in theology ? I shall try to recall the word to its proper meaning. There is a basis of sound thought in religion. This basis of thought is theology. There is no reason, because the name has been abused, why we should deny the reality. If it has been imagined that theology is for the few, while religion is for the many, I shall try to show that in the true sense a good theology is a necessity to all sane minds. Theology is simply that aspect of religion which appeals to the reason of man, and in fact, by means of this appeal commands his lasting reverence.

It will no doubt be felt that I have given only an outline of the great matters of theology. It has been my deliberate purpose not

INTRODUCTION. XV

to discuss side issues or needless matters of controversy. Let us once agree as to the true point of view ; let us settle what the main facts are, and I hold that we shall have lifted our whole subject above the range of controversy. I am aware, however, that in my treatment of the questions of sin, blame, responsibility, forgiveness, and freedom, I have taken ground which, however reasonable and consistent it may be, will appear to many to be very bold and far-reaching in its consequences. To some it may seem to be new and strange ground. I do not care whether my readers call the position new or old. I ask their candid and patient examination, regardless of prejudice, whether the position is not truly and distinctly wholesome, as truth always must be.

I have sought merely to suggest the bearing of the wider and more rational view of the nature of " moral evil " upon the treatment and the teaching of ethics. I believe, however, that it would be a most helpful and profitable task to show how in the religious

XVI INTRODUCTION.

philosophy of this essay the great ethical questions about the action of conscience, about duty and responsibility, about the various virtues and the problems of casuistry, about the laws of right and happiness, about the use and application of motives in moral education, all find a noble and inspiring solution.

My treatment of the so-called " freedom of the will " may be misunderstood by those who come to it with the traditional prejudices upon this subject that most men inherit. I believe that the facts, when carefully observed, are as easily demonstrated as was the law of the planetarj^ motion when once Copernicus had enunciated it. As a plausible misinterpretation of the testimony of men's consciousness made them unwilling to accept Copernicus' doctrine that the earth moved, so I believe that a not dissimilar misinterpretation of the inward consciousness at present largely confuses men's thought about the actual working of the human will.

The enunciation of the true nature of

INTRODUCTION. XVll

human "freedom," simple and rational as it is by itself, and in accord with our best knowledge, may seem at first to some minds to be a denial of human personality. I have, therefore, endeavored in three consecutive chapters to set forth a true doctrine of human nature, and to show wherein real personality consists, how in the case of man it grows and develops, how majestic and practical a fact it is, and how entirely consistent it is with the most satisfying form of theism. I have tried to show that the line of man's higher growth as a mature and civilized man is through a necessary transition period of self-consciousness, egotism, and selfishness, — a period in which unrest and unhappiness menace the individual and society, in which man suffers conflict without and within, and rarely enjoys real unity, peace of mind, or gladness. True growth rises, through this period of comparative discomfort, upwards to a true personality, like God's, where man's nature at last rests in the stable and gladsome equilibrium of xvm INTEODUCTION.

good- will. I wish to show that there is no real education, whether in the university or in the church, that does not result in this higher personality without the winning of which man's life would be a failure, and the magnificent processes of the universe would come to nought. We shall see that the true doctrine of personality is the secret of what men in every age have known as salvation, happiness, heaven, or eternal life.

The concluding chapters apply the thought of the book by way of easy illustration to certain practical problems of education and conduct. The final test of all thought is, Will it work ? It must not only fit together, but it must fit life also. It must be capable of translation into hardy and chivalrous conduct, and it must therefore be practicable in the education of children and in the processes of civilization.

I believe that the time for religious controversy has passed. We have reached a point, through the labor of many thinkers, where we can now see the harmony of

INTRODUCTION. Xix

views that once seemed to be contradictory, and can therefore offer a broad and fresh interpretation, both ethical and uplifting, and more satisfactory to the conscience and to the intellect than any previous interpretation. Brought up in the traditions of the religion of early New England, familiar with the tremendous thoughts and searching experiences of a rigid "orthodoxy," going out to live in the larger world where all religions and philosophies compete, the Christianity of my childhood has seemed to take on a grand, beautiful, and universal form, in which no element of sound thought, genuine feeling, or ennobling memory is left out. It is no longer exclusive of aught that has helped men in other forms of faith. It puts up no barriers against the devout Jew, the honest Parsee, the friendly Buddhist or Confucian. If this is a growing world, it is not too much to expect that no form of Christianity since Jesus taught, and no form of theism since men began to think, could be so practical and workable as the new form

XX INTBOBUCTION.

which comes to us at the dawn of a new century — the inheritance of all the ages.

It may seem strange to some that I have hardly attempted to make definitions. I have a deliberate reason for this apparent neglect. Little things, matters of detail which have a single aspect, may be defined. The great things, which have many sides and all dimensions, cannot be easily comprised within a definition. Who can define life or consciousness ? But we do not any the less know these facts. Mysterious as they are, they are necessary subjects of thought. So with religion ; so with our idea of God. We care little for names ; we are concerned with the reality —

** The Somewhat which we name but cannot know,

Ev'n as we name a star and only see His quenchless flashings forth, which ever show

And ever hide him, and which are not he."

The largeness of the thought, the infinite variety of the aspects, does not bar us from the most fruitful discussion of those aspects which we know. I have hoped to make my

INTRODUCTION. XXI

meaning plain, never by restricting myself to a single definition, but by suggesting through how many forms, parables, illustrations, and partial statements the greatest of subjects must be developed. If I wish to show what love is, I must tell stories of how love acts; I must recite the poems that praise love. In some such varied way we must show what we mean when we name God, or teach religion. I have begun with using these words even vaguely, just as the ideas come to average men. I have not been able to tell at first in what precise sense religion is a reality, and in what sense the word may cover a mere superstition. I have not tried to tell at first what I mean by speaking of God as a person. I can show this better when we come to see what we mean by calling each other persons. Meantime I must run the risk of some slight misunderstanding.

I cannot too strongly urge and emphasize the characteristic test of truth in modern thought and reasoning. How do we know xxii INTBOBUCTION.

a truth, when we see it? We know it because it matches, fits, goes into the unity, " makes sense." To match and fit is to be true. But a lie fits nowhere ; it separates, whereas truth binds. It is like tlie old story of Cain. There is no place where a lie can stay. The universe simply will not receive it. So with all the wrong things. They have no dwelling-place. But the things right and true are fixed in the eternal structure of the world. Their patterns endure.

The sum of truth is not a chain which is only as strong as its weakest link. The sum of truth is a universe in which all things harmonize and each has its place. Do you stand where things tend, as you view them, to make a harmony? This is the test of any man's position as a thinker. Does his view of truth, incorporated into conduct, make toward fullness of life ? This is a sort of demonstration that his thinking is right. What is the kind of thought out of which a noble civilization may be con-

INTBODUCTION, XXIU

structed? This is what the world longs to know.

I have not cared to enter into the old question whether we may see moral or religious truths by " intuition." It is certain that all the material for our thinking comes to us first through the doors of our senses. It is equally certain that we possess an imaginative or constructive faculty whereby we continually translate the raw material of thought into new and higher terms. All science proceeds by the use of this imaginative faculty. Newton watching the falling apple, Agassiz measuring the movement of glaciers, Tyndall studying the passage of sound through a fog bank, speedily passed the material that their senses gave them through the alembic of the scientific imagination, and lo ! truths and principles and a certain order of the world disclosed themselves. We use precisely the same faculty of scientific or constructive imagination in regard to morals and religion. We have the same reason for trusting it in

XXIV INTRODUCTION.

the one place as in the other. It is the same faculty by which the musician makes a harmony or detects discords, which, applied to moral conduct, pronounces one action wrong, that is, dissonant, or out of line, and another action right, fitting, or beautiful.

The plan of the book admits some repetition of the more important thoughts. Such thoughts are like the theme of a symphony : their recurrence ought to serve and not to frustrate the unity of the book.

I wish to express my hearty acknowledgments of the kindness of my friend Prof. Edward Hale, of Harvard University, who has read the proofs of the book as it has gone through the press.

THE THEOLOGY OF CIVILIZATION.

Chapter I. The Kealm Of Doubt

Every one knows — even children early find out — that there are men and women who profess not to believe in religion. Perhaps these doubters of religion maintain a very respectable character. They have the courage of their convictions, and openly avow themselves to be atheists, materialists, pessimists, or agnostics. They are not always to be taken too seriously : they sometimes doubt or deny the validity of religion for the sake of making an argument; they may even enjoy drawing attention to themselves as peculiar, original, brilliant, and independent people.

'A THEOLOGY OF CIVILIZATION.

Few as the doubters and deniers of religion may be, there are moods of mind and feeling with many of us, when we wonder whether they are not right. There is often a dim and uncomfortable suspicion that if the truth all came out, there would not be any religion. It is vaguely guessed that there are very damaging facts to be urged against the fundamental propositions of religion, against the very existence of God ; or, if he exists, against his goodness, or against the possibility of our knowing anything about him, or having any kind of communion with him. It is surmised that science in her new discoveries about the origin of man and the relation of the body to the mind has brought forward dangerous objections against the immortality of the soul, or indeed against the existence of the soul.

I propose to take an excursion into the realm of doubt. Is it not idle business to stand upon the ground of religion, like men under arms to guard their native land ? If the religious view of the universe is true, all truth belongs to it. The reahii of doubt is no foreign or dangerous country, a devil's land that we must beware of ; it is a part of the universe. Let us go over and see it; let us traverse it as far as any man can ; let us not be in the least afraid of finding wild beasts or other enemies in it. If there are deep forests, let us explore them and open them to the light. Is there any fact in this dark continent that threatens to hurt us ? Let us march up to such a fact and interrogate it, and hear what it has to say for itself. Is it possible that an}^ one believes in religion, and yet is afraid of a truth?

It is a fact, at the outset, that everything in this world, so far as the human mind is concerned, is capable of a negative as well as a positive interpretation. Is the sunshine a blessing ? But it may kill as well as bless. Is the rain from heaven useful to man? But it may inundate his fields and sweep his buildings away. Is the ocean a mighty highway for the nations ? But it also sinks our ships in its waves. Success, money.

praise, honors — all these things may spoil man's character and bring him care and pain rather than happiness. I know of nothing that cannot be translated into terms of negation, of harm, loss, pain, unhappiness. It depends at every turn upon how I use my circumstances and belongings, and what my attitude is toward them, whether I shall call them good or bad. Moreover, I need to know what the chances of mishap are, in order that I may know how to prevent them, or even to turn them into advantages.

It is not strange that the universe itself, or the sum of all things, is likewise capable of a purely negative interpretation. This is the nature of our minds. As there are solutions in the higher mathematics in which you have your choice whether you will write plus or minus before the answer, so it is Avith the universe. You can write the minus sign before your answer to the question whether you believe in it, whether you are glad of it, whether in short it is good. To me, I confess, the universe means more, and not less, in tliat it is capable of an infinite solution on either side of the line. Am I afraid of this negative solution? On the contrary, I never yet followed it out, and tried carefully to see what it means, without coming back with a new sense of supreme satisfaction to the positive solution, to which I hold that the other is related, as the shadow is related to the light. I am glad of the shadow, infinite as it is. I understand the light the better for seeing it. From the side of the shadow I simply cannot explain the fact of the light. From the side of the light I can see why shadows must be.

Let us suppose, for a while, that the atheist is right, and let us plunge boldly into the gloom of a world of negations. Perhaps it will prove rather pleasant at first. It begins with cool half-lights. There is a sense of having escaped from constraints and conventions ; there is some exhilaration at being in new paths, which timid people have marked as " dangerous." We are free of wearisome customs — for instance, of going to church every Sunday ; we say good-by to the superstitions, ecclesiasticisms, and childish ceremonies that mark the border land between faith and doubt. Where are we now ? We are supposing that it is of no use to pray or to worship God. We are supposing that there is no God. We are trying for a while the experiment of living without any religion. We are assuming that there is no good power in the universe, except such powers of goodness as men develop for themselves. We suppose that matter and force are the only realities that abide. We men are what force, playing on matter, makes us. When the matter changes its shape, when the vital force (whatever that is) goes out of us, there is the end of the man. Why not?

Possibly we are quite content with this view of the world. We have carried with us for our journey a little supply of provisions that were raised on the other side of the line. Have we not our character left? we say. Have we not our honesty, our courage, our passion for truth, our kindness, and generosity, our splendid human love and friendship? If we have got rid of any selfish desire for another life, do we not look forward with high hopes of human progress, to which our noble efforts shall be devoted? Let us go back now and report to our friends what a fine country this is which we have explored.

Not so fast. We have only taken a mere holiday excursion into the negative realm. For hundreds of years men have been accustomed to travel far enough to say in their hearts, '•'- There is no God," and to ask, '' If a man die, shall he live again ? " Ages ago men knew that a blow on the head stopped the life, just as well as they know in these days of microscopes. Who has never contemplated superficial facts that make for the negative interpretation of life ? A man has not necessarily thought very far on the negative side in denying '' God " and " immortality." He may have only denied certain misunderstandings of his own about what these words mean. He may not be an infidel at all in declining to say '' God." He must think far enough in his denials to show us what he means by denying the reality of God. Does he really deny that there is any goodness in the universe? Is there no moral structure whatever ? Is there no power of any sort that makes for righteousness ? These are the denials that we are bound to make in pushing our way into the very heart of the realm of doubt. In other words, the negative interpretation of the universe is tremendously radical. See what you take if you take it at all !

I said that we began with a stock of certain comfortable provisions — virtues, convictions, aspirations, ideals of progress. These things do not grow any longer in the land of shadows. The climate does not suit them ; or if they still appear in favored spots, they are like the stunted trees that barely live in the Arctic regions. They survive,

THE BEALM OF DOUBT, 9

but you will never get fruit from them. Nevertheless, let us see if we cannot march on without them.