The purpose of God.

Preface

THIS book is an attempt to present in orderly form those views of divine and human relations which, during a hundred years, have been developing in the Universalist Church. There are, doubtless, many forms of statement in it which will seem new to Universalists, and some conclusions which will not be readily accepted. But it is believed that every one of these grows logically out of ideas which are acknowledged by all ; and that the surprise or the dissent will be only such as we always experience when our vague beliefs are reduced to accurate statements and their inevitable corollaries set before us.

But the book is not offered to this church alone. If the Universalist consciousness were not part of the general Christian consciousness, if it had not roots extending through all the past ages, and affiliations with the spiritual life of all Christendom, it would be worth no man's while to elaborate or defend it. The author assumes to speak to the whole Church, believing that the system of thought here suggested —

IV PREFACE.

crudely, no doubt, as a first attempt — marks the position towards which all the best thinking of the Church is tending. The divine method here presented does not permit us to suppose any abrupt change, any future not evolved from the past ; and the author imagines that he sees in much of the thinking of the past a feeling after such conceptions as are here offered.

No apology is made for the omission of much which the reader might expect to find. The effort has been to set forth the comprehensive scheme with as little elaboration of detail as might be consistent with clearness of view ; and to comprise all within a volume of unforbidding size.

A constant effort has been made to avoid controversy, not as in itself objectionable or permanently avoidable, but as tending to obscure a first statement. And to this effort may be charged the omission of some things and the light touch given to others. In short, if the reader carries' away from this book the one fundamental conception on which it is based, he will have all the author designs to give.

November, 1893.

ANALYSIS.

The World Embodies the Meaning of God.

PAGE

Man Pre-eminent I

The Physical World 2

The Human World 5

God Interprets the World.

General Considerations 10

Heathen Systems 13

Judaism 19

Christianity :

General Claims 20

Sources :

Character and History 28

Dominant Themes :

The Sovereign God 31

God's Word to Men 32

Unity of the Bible 37

v

PAGE

VI ANAL YSIS.

The Men Primarily Addressed.

The Jews before Christ 39

The Gentiles before Christ 46

Christ Summarizes the Past 50

He Adds to the Past :

The Fatherhood of God 53

The Triumph of Righteousness 55

Immortality 56

Philanthropy 59

The Meaning of Life 60

The Person of Christ 62

The Christians 64

The Divine Interpretation of the World. Teachings of the Bible :

General Considerations 68

His Power 73

His Wisdom 76

His Justice :

Personal 78

Administrative :

General Considerations 79

Law :

Natural 81

Of Conscience 82

Biblical \ . . 89

His Goodness 93

His Eminence 97

ANAL YSIS. Vll

PAGE

The Nature of Man {continued) :

Perfect in Christ 98

His Immortality 99

Active Faculties :

Reason 107

Sentiment no

Conscience 112

Will 115

Relations of Man to God :

The Problem of Sin 130

The Salvation of Christ : The Gospel Narrative :

Historical Character 137

Miracles 140

The Object 154

The Means :

Society 158

Inspiration 179

The Method 198

The Result :

The Mystery of Evil 204

Death 212

General Remarks 216

Vlll ANAL VSLS.

PAGE

Salvation from Sin (continued} :

Obstacles 220

Enlightenment . 223

Punishment 226

Forgiveness 232

Repentance 236

General Remarks 240

Work 241

Association 242

Bible Study 247

Prayer 249

God will be All in All.

THE PURPOSE OF GOD.

i.

GOD 127 THE WORLD.

MAN is at once the product and the master of the world. At every point he is closely allied with his surroundings ; and yet some of his peculiarities — his size, his anatomical structure, his length of life, his power of adaptation to all climates and all foods — give him an immense advantage, which his mental endowments raise to an easy and immeasurable mastery. Therefore we find him, at whatever stage of culture, using for his own ends the objects and forces of nature which surround him. But he does not at any stage do this as a foreign master. He is native to his state, and acts upon the world from within the world, and with constant reaction of the world upon himself. This gives rise to a continual forward movement, a development of both man and the world ; for under his hand new resources continually come to light in answer to his progressive demands, and this in such increasing ratio, that both the scientific and the popular mind have come to doubt whether man can develop any legitimate need for which nature has not a supply; while, on the other hand, his own development keeps pace with that which is thus produced in nature, and his demands forever rise. Out of this increasing action and reaction all the history of man's life has been evolved ; and it is not easy at first sight to decide whether the conditions of his physical environment have influenced the development of man, or his increasing mastery of the world has modified these conditions, in the larger degree.

Nor is this a recent movement only. As far back as we can trace man's life, the same interaction between him and nature is found. Indeed, there is no known condition of man, not even the rudest savagery or the remotest indications of his prehistoric days, in which he is not noticeable before all else for his attempts to control his surroundings, and for at least a partial success. We have no knowledge and no guess of any human existence not involved in this perpetual commerce with nature.

When, however, we follow back the history of the physical world, the case seems at first entirely different. Compared with its vast duration, the period of man's existence becomes almost inconsiderable ; and nature may be said to have run her career and almost

GOD IN THE WORLD. 3

filled out her days before she was concerned with man. But a closer examination must modify this view. The present state of the earth, so perfectly adapted not to any one human condition, but to all the stages of man's progressive growth, is found to have resulted, without break or sudden change, from the entire sequence of geological history. * Step by step the unknown chaos of the beginning has evolved all its successive conditions, till the earth became what we know it. No point can be found which could serve as a commencement without supposing all that went before ; and conversely the present constitution of the earth seems to crown and fulfil all the past as its accomplished ' aim. Therefore, since the world is so perfectly fitted to human needs, man and man alone is the adequate end towards which the whole vast process points ; and although he came so late upon the scene, yet Nature must be judged to have foreknown her consummate offspring, and to have labored for his coming through all her years.

Other lines of investigation add force to this conclusion. To uncultivated men the surface of nature with which they come in contact seems simple ; but the first attempt at analysis shows that it is very complex. The earlier researches of science seemed to divide the natural field into many different and almost independent domains ; but the deeper study of our day finds all these inseparably united, so that the aggregate of surroundings which we call the world is a unit of innumerable parts and of the greatest complexity, but each portion is necessary to all the rest, and none could be what it is if all the others were not what they are. When, therefore, we find that the total front of nature with which man deals is adapted so perfectly to his wants that it is always ready to answer his new advances with new supplies, and that this is the result of the co-ordination of all nature's departments, we are more than ever impressed with the thought already suggested by geological history. So great a complexity, resulting in so perfect an adaptation to man, and not to man as a constant factor, but to all stages of his'* advancing life, cannot be an environment to which he has casually adjusted himself, but must be conceived as a premeditated result, having him for its object.

Still another series of facts re-enforces this conclusion. The five or six thousand years of human history of which we have some certain knowledge do not merely show a series of readjustments between man and nature, but they emphatically display a development wrought in man himself as the result of his own volitions combined with the reactions of his environment, which combination constitutes the course

GOD IN THE WORLD 5

of human events. To the successive stages of this evolution nature has visibly contributed ; and not merely as the scene of action, but as often determining by its own processes the course of events. The distribution of land and water, the course of rivers and of mountain chains, drought and pestilence, the varying fertility or sterility of lands and of races, the deposits of minerals, and the connection of foods with climates, have all effected the story of man's life. And since this story is not a jumble of aimless vicissitudes, but presents on the whole a sustained advance in human character and power, the thought becomes irresistible that the constitution and the processes of nature which contribute so much to this result must be the expression of a purpose as ancient as the beginning of material things, and powerful enough to control the world and all its parts.

Now, this point being reached, or only vaguely surmised, a new element enters.

At an early stage in his development man becomes conscious of himself. He knows within himself a power not bodily, by the exertion of which he masters his own physical frame and bends to his purposes the things which surround , him. He knows what it is to form a purpose and hold to it through many actions ; what it is to assemble resources and combine them to his determined aim ; what it is to supply from within himself the power of will which overcomes all difficulties and issues in success. He is aware, too, that other men have and use the same powers, and he studies their works and acts to determine their aims.

Now, this inner man, looking on the world about him, recognizes, with the sure intuition of like-mindedness, that the world expresses the same qualities of fixed purpose and dominant will which he knows in himself and sees in other men. At a low stage of intelligence he recognizes this fitfully and in isolated results ; as his mind broadens, his wider survey gives him a larger conception and a firmer grasp of the same thing; and the height of modern science, besides enlarging this view to embrace the universe, also adds the element of intensity to a degree which augments the force of an entire argument.

For science not only reveals the great complexity of the world, but equally shows the harmony of this complex. The dominant charm of scientific research is not utility, but the fascination of a wonderful harmony, which the mind more and more comprehends, and finds more and more perfect. We tire of the babble of children or fools, and turn away with disgust from unmeaning words or aimless deeds ; but the thoughts of the ingenious or the wise attract and hold us with

GOD IN THE WORLD. 7

an educating power. Now, it is the latter and not the former impression which the study of nature and of the course of events makes on serious minds. We confront intelligence which answers more and more profoundly to our questioning, and a wise design beyond all the ingenuity of man ; so that the deeper our study, the less are we disposed to imagine that it is we who impose thought upon nature, the more disposed to read, like the humblest pupils, in a book of boundless wisdom.

This study has brought us to the conception of God, and has given us far more than a sacred name or a conventional faith. The conception is of a great Intelligence, which fashioned the world from the first, and has conducted it through all its course, for the purpose of developing man's life, and which commands power so vast as to compass all its ends. This, however, throws no light on the objective point of God's action upon man through nature and life ; but there is another line of investigation which does.

Experience has abundantly shown that the established course of nature tends to human welfare on the condition that man co-operate with that order ; while, on the other hand, nature steadily opposes, and always thwarts in the end, the efforts of men to act against her laws. Man's contact with nature, therefore, subjects him to a constant system of rewards and punishments, which tend powerfully to bring him into harmony with nature's order. Now, since all the order of nature is the expression of God's purpose in nature, and since we have found this purpose directed always towards man, it follows that when man comes into co-operation with the laws of nature, he comes to this extent into harmony with God ; and, therefore, the purpose of God, in the ordering of the world, is to bring men into harmony with himself.

But we can add another step to this. The whole action of nature has to do with man's welfare, even the oppositions and hardships of the natural world being a wholesome discipline which instructs and restrains him for his good. And if we do not conceive too narrowly the ideas of human welfare and of man's co-operation with nature, we shall in this direction find our conception of God's purpose greatly enlarged.

The welfare of man reaches from his simplest bodily needs to the highest possibilities of his spirit ; and he co-operates with nature or opposes it along this entire range. It is not merely that man adapts himself to climate and food, or establishes the social order which his individual weakness makes necessary ; besides such adaptations, the use of his mental and moral qualities lays nature under larger tribute to human welfare. Intelligence and will, industry, patience, and

GOD IN THE WORLD. 9

self-control make man far more the master of his surroundings than strength or passion ; and the more elaborate his uses of nature become, the more does his resulting welfare depend on these inward forces. So that when we come to consider the highest level of man's co-operation with nature, that, namely, at which he and his environment combine to produce the course of events, man's contribution to the result is found to be almost wholly spiritual, his physical activity being far surpassed by the brutes or the machines which he controls.

The direct outcome, therefore, of man's interaction with the world is to call forth and exercise his nobler faculties, giving the mind its vast and rightful predominance over the body. And this result is at once an eminent degree of human welfare and the highest possible harmony of man with nature, since in this way man sets himself to govern and use the world by the same powers which its Maker and Ruler employs. Hence the conclusion of our whole inquiry is that the purpose under which God has ordered and conducts the world is that man may be brought into harmony with God by the development of his spiritual powers, as being his highest welfare both in process and in result. And the means by which this is being effected is the experience of life.

io THE PURPOSE OF GOD.

II. God Communicates With Man

IT seems implied in this conception of God's purpose, that he would make some communication to men more definite than they can of themselves deduce from the world. And men have always believed themselves to possess such communications.

The first thing, in face of an alleged message from God, is to judge of its authenticity. This may rest either on our estimate of the messenger or on the impression which the message makes upon us. We are entitled to assume that an explicit message from God will harmonize with that which we learn of him from the order of nature and the course of events ; and since we have found these to disclose a divine purpose of educating man into harmony with God, we may begin by requiring that this purpose shall be not less, but more distinct, in both the messenger and the message.

If our estimate of the messenger is to authenticate the message, it must be because the message which he brings has affected him as it is expected to affect us. Therefore no greatness which he may exhibit, for

GOD COMMUNICATES WITH MAN. II

instance of social power or of learning, in the least authenticates any message he may deliver as of God, unless we find him, judged as a man like ourselves, to be in harmony with God.

As to the message, we may consider it authentic so far as we find that it re-enforces the tendency of the world to bring man into harmony with God. And we may judge of this either by the effects observed in others, or, far better, by its influence upon ourselves. Indeed, this response of the soul is the most satisfactory and the most generally received of all tests. As we find in all nature correspondences between parts helpful to each other, and recognize that those surroundings are the most congenial amid which any living thing grows to its best state, so the quick response of our own hearts, and the ennobling influence upon our own lives, which follow certain teachings, become for us the best warrant that these are divine.

Therefore, the only reliable test of the authenticity of alleged revelation is for each individual his own judgment of the effect produced by it on those who have received it, whether as prophet or as disciple.

All attempts to evade this test fail. If miracle is alleged, still each must judge for himself whether a miracle has occurred, and, if so, whether the power it attests is in harmony with God or not. If the authority of the learned is appealed to, or the consensus of the multitude, still these have authority for the disciple only so far as he judges them to have it. Briefly, the object of divine revelation can only be to further the divine purpose which rules man ; and that only can be judged to be divine revelation which is first judged to have this tendency.

A message from God to man is as much conditioned upon man's capacity to receive as upon God's willingness to communicate ; and man can receive any message only so far as it is expressed in terms, whether verbal or symbolic, of his own experience. If, therefore, God has spoken variously to men, now to an individual, now to a nation or race, now a supreme word to all mankind, it must be expected that the terms of expression will be found as different as the experiences of those addressed. We must not, therefore, so apply our test as to reject every alleged message which does not further our own education towards God ; but we are to consider of each whether it did this for those to whom it first came. And for deciding this we may use both our own judgment of its adaptedness and the testimony of history.

Divine messages of local or temporary application can hardly be called revelation, which is an unveiling of God. They are rather a thinning of the veil, that through it God's movements may appear, authentic, indeed, but vague and blurred. If there be a true revelation, an actual unveiling of the infinite God, it must be expressed in terms which all men can to a useful degree apprehend, which cannot lose their meaning with varying circumstances, and which are capable of unfolding more and more divine meaning as the experience of life enlarges men's power of apprehension. Such a revelation cannot be verbal. It must be expressed in an epitome of all human experience. It is found perfectly and exclusively in the person of Jesus Christ.

But as other divine messages prepared the way for the coming of Christ, so a consideration of the others may prepare our minds to study him.

There are scattered through history points of enlightenment which seem either to express or to have caused a tendency to higher thoughts, but of which we can give no definite account. Such are the vague intimations in the Scandinavian mythology of the final destruction of their system and the incoming of something better. Such is that secret wisdom of the Egyptians, to which so much has been attributed, of which so little is known. Such were the mysteries of the Greeks, the secret of which has been so marvellously kept, while their ennobling power was attested by many great minds. These and many more, less or not at all known to us, have doubtless furthered God's purpose, and may be fairly classed among his obscure messages to men.

But there are seven systems which have avowed the purpose of bettering human life, and have proved their power by controlling for many centuries the conduct of vast numbers of mankind. Of these the Jewish and the Christian are reserved for later study. The others, namely, those of the Brahmans, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Zoroaster, and of Mohammed, while they differ much in special characteristics, have a certain common feature which sets them aside from the other two. Each of the five fixes its regard upon a certain set of human conditions, which it finds existing or which it prescribes, and makes full human attainment consist in perfect conformity to these. They have no note of progress.

i. The Brahman, insisting that spirit is everything, and finding this hardly received by human nature, bends all his efforts to establish that belief. But neither does he offer any hope that mankind will attain this truth, nor does it appear what lies beyond for those who have attained it. There is neither present progress nor a future goal.

2. The Buddhist, beginning with the assertion that life is the greatest possible calamity, seeks to ease it by deeds of self-sacrifice and kindness. But life remains a calamity, and the only hope of peace is in a mysterious escape from life, which may be annihilation.

3. Zoroaster, in a nobler vein, faces the evident conflict between good and evil, and summons men to enlist for the good. He vaguely tells of the Infinite, greater than this strife, who will at last terminate it by the triumph of good. But the present struggle is not shown as one of progressive victory. The hundredth generation only repeats the hard warfare of the first ; and how the consummation is related to this long, weary history is not shown.

4. Confucius aimed at the ordering of daily life. The future is to be merely a sequence of years, in which will be accurately repeated that which is already established. All is tied to the past and progress unconceived.

5. Mohammed gave his followers the immense power which comes of the consciousness of God. Not only is God one, but he is omnipotent, and always concerned with us. But for this great engine no corresponding work is provided. Man is simply to conform to the existing conditions of life, age after age, with obedience to certain formal requirements. Of any purpose by which the ever-present God is ruling the world, no hint is given.

Of course, other religions might be named which are or have been of great local importance, and have, indeed, attracted much attention beyond the circle of their votaries. But these five are all which by their vast extension and their tenacious vitality have a claim to be considered here.

Now, such widespread and persistent phenomena of man's mental history must certainly have been active agencies in God's hand. The Church has, naturally enough, regarded them at one or another time as rivals, and denounced and hated them ; and perhaps, under the pressure of active antagonism, nothing else could be expected. But when we remember the purpose of God and his infinite resources, it must seem presumption indeed to declare by what ways he may reach men for their good ; and if we consider the multitudes for whom these have been the only religion, if we read the nobler pages of their literatures, or study the best examples of character which each has produced, nothing but the blindness of bigotry can keep back the belief that God has used these great agencies to bring his children, by ways not familiar to us, and in a sense we may not yet appreciate, nearer to himself.

Each of them is based, as has been shown, on a great fundamental principle essential to man's highest life ; and through this, doubtless, each may open access between God and man. But life is too complex to be resolved into a single principle ; and, however willing we may be to believe that it answers God's purpose to approach great masses of men in this way, one group from one side and another from another, yet it is in the nature of the case that no one of these can fully suffice for man's complete education. Each carries its limitations in its very constitution ; and history plainly demonstrates this fact, for each has been inseparably allied with a stationary condition of society. As they give no incentive to progress, so neither can they adapt themselves to it ; and forward movements otherwise impelled immediately arouse a conflict. None of them, therefore, can assert any claim to be universal, either in the sense of sufficing for all men or as meeting all the wants of any.

It is not easy to guess what may be the function of these great religions in the future development of God's purpose. A deep influence was evidently exerted upon the faith of the Jews by the doctrines of Zoroaster during the Captivity ; and the speculations of India affected the heresies, and perhaps indirectly the faith, of the early Christians. Analogous results may come in the future from the contact of the Gospel with the ethnic faiths. Certainly we already see a tendency to broader and simpler views of Christianity growing out of missionary work. It may even be that changes too complex or too radical for us to anticipate will grow out of these associations.

l8 THE PURPOSE OF GOD.

These religions belong to the vast, unmoving, conservative majority of mankind, which remains from century to century unchanged ; while that progressive movement of human development which we have seen corresponds to the course of nature, has for the last twenty-rive centuries belonged to the European minority. It cannot be that this distinction is to continue. Indeed, our day is witnessing the beginnings of movement in many parts of this long stagnant majority. And it may be conjectured that when the Asiatic peoples enter at last into the course of progress, the contributions which they will certainly make to the world's life will somehow be found identified with their religions. All of these, except the Mohammedan, had their origin in a remote past, before the rise of European life, and at a time when the vigor and progress of the world lay in Asia. It may be that the Asiatic religions will be found to have trans^ mitted across all these sleeping centuries some products of man's earliest vitality which European life has not reproduced. The discoveries of our time continually bring to light the surprising attainments of the earliest men in construction and art, in jurisprudence and business ; why may we not suppose that they made in the spiritual field equally surprising attainments which lie buried and unguessed under the vast accumulations of the centuries ? If there be any truth in this conjecture, of course it will appear just in proportion as the life of the West mingles with and understands the patient conservatism of the East. It is certain that the East needs the West : it may be that the West cannot run its full course without the East.

Judaism is a dual system. On the one hand, it legislates for a certain race, for certain social conditions. Its whole -history proves that it tends to intensify racial feelings, and to isolate those whom it rules. Thus viewed, Judaism is therefore as unfit as any system yet considered to be called universal or a revelation. But, on the other hand, there runs through all the life of Israel a higher strain. God is announced as ruling all nations for his own purpose. The triumph of this purpose is declared to be constantly preparing, and its consummation sure. Nor is this a subordinate strain. It appears at the very beginnings of the race, and, running through all its history, dominates the noblest minds, and increases its vehemence at every crisis. It sets righteousness before ceremonial, the pure heart before the ordered life.