Absolute religion

Front matter

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Chapter I

The Absolute Religion considered in connection with the doctrines of the Bible, especially the teachings of Christ.

I. It is not difficult for the reflecting mind to see, in the currents of thought which characterize the present period, a tendency to bring into notice, and to give emphasis to what is called the Absolute Religion. Many persons, who would not willingly be regarded as irreligious, have expressed a desire for a religion founded upon the exercise of reason and upon philosophical principles, and not exclusively or chiefly upon authority. The utterance which is heard in this direction, is every day growing louder and more imperative. It is the expression of the views and feelings of persons whose sincerity cannot well be doubted ; and who, at least, have a claim upon our respect for the intellectual ability which they have often manifested. It is an utterance, therefore, whether addressed to us as Christians, or merely as men of thought and philosophic inquiry, which cannot wisely be allowed to go unheeded.

2. The first inquiry which claims our attention, is, What are we to understand by the Absolute Religion ? It is perhaps proper to say, that the answer to this question will be likely to develop itself more fully and satisfactorily in the course of the discussions which are to follow. And yet a few words on the subject may properly be said here. In the first place it may be remarked in general terms and without going minutely into reasons, that the Absolute Religion is that religion which, harmonizing with the truths and requisitions of God on the one hand, and with the nature of man as related to God on the other, is necessarily as wide in its extent and its application as humanity itself; — a religion which neither limited by geographical boundaries, nor dependent for its existence on civil and political enactments, is the inheritance of all men equally, whatever their name or place or condition, by virtue of their common nature. In other words, it is a religion which is universal.

In the second place, it is that religion which finding its subjective expression in ideas rather than

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in sensations, and in those ideas which are fundamental in themselves and in their relations, vindicates its claim to Absoluteness, because it is unchangeable ; and is therefore the religion, not only of all men and all nations but of all time and all ages. That religion, which is found to be merely an incident of a nation's or people's history, and which passes away with the transition of the temporary circumstances on which it is founded, fails to present any just claim to this character of immutableness and universality. The Absolute Religion is something very different from this. Founded in the nature and constitution of things, but harmonizing with the thought and sustained by the power of the highest Intelligence in the universe, and being revealed to human apprehension by means of fundamental and universal ideas, which speak inwardly and intuitionally and with a voice of authority, it is necessarily a religion which exists everywhere, and exists forever. No antagonisms of the changeable and the finite, no chance nor change, which mars the face of human affairs, nor hardness of heart, nor slowness of belief, can triumph over the truth and supremacy which are its basis.

3. Characterized by universality in its extent and application, and by permanency in duration, it has also this distinctive and paramount feature, that it carries with it a binding and controlling obligation upon the thoughts, feelings and actions of all men and of all moral beings, by a virtue or power which is lodged in itself, and not by means or in virtue of any power, authority or command outside of itself. It may be aided by such outside influences but is not necessarily dependent upon them. Its authority is its own ; its word is law. It may not be out of place to make the explanatory remark here, that there is a great difference between a thing considered in its own nature, and its announcement or revelation. The thing or object in question presents itself in one aspect ; the announcement of it in another. For instance, the announcement of the Absolute Religion may have occurred at a particular period or in a particular country, in the era of Moses, or in the era of Christ, at Sinai or at Jerusalem, at Rome or Athens, or in other periods and in other countries ; but the thing itself, the religious truth, involved by a sort of eternal generation in the great facts of the universe, has no time or place, no beginning or end.

4. Such, in general terms is the Absolute Religion. This religion has had its interpreters in all ages of the world ; men who, with different degrees of mental illumination, have attempted to give expression to the great religious thought, written in the hieroglyphics of universal nature ; — Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Confucius, Zoroaster, Sakya-

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Mouni, and many others, who have seen something of the great interior light, which is destined in the progress of its rising to illuminate all lands, and to harmonize all moral and religious separations. I allude to these men who seem to me to have been to some extent the subjects of a divine guidance, in no lightness of spirit, but with a sincere reverence and gratitude. Each in his degree and place, and in reference to his age and country, may be regarded as having a divine mission, and as being in some important sense the minister of God. Nevertheless there came in the fullness of time a Man who was greater than these. If I have studied him aright in what has been left us of his life and doctrines, the great teacher of the Absolute Religion, and standing far above all others in the measurement of his insight, is Jesus of Nazareth. The highest and most reliable expression of the Absolute Religion is found as it seems to me in his wonderful words.

5. The object of the present work, undertaken with much mistrust of myself but in the hope that it will be found to harmonize with the truth, is not only to announce some of the leading doctrines of the Absolute Religion, but to show their identity with the doctrines of Christ. The religion of Christ, which is only another name for the principles involved in the teachings of Christ, is the Absolute Religion ; because having incarnated itself in Christ and thus shown its divine beauty in the human form, it henceforth belongs to man, not perhaps in the temporary and changing incidents of his history, but to man in his essential and universal nature, and therefore is the religion of humanity. The religion of Christ is the Absolute Religion because, though it may be said in its personal applications to grow up and to put forth the buds and flowers of feeling, the rich and beautiful experiences of emotions and affections, it nevertheless has its root in the deepest thought, and is both grounded in, and harmonizes with, unchangeable intuitions. The religion of Christ is the Absolute Religion, though man is its object, and is also, in the exercise of his powers of perception and reasoning, the appointed and neces^ sary instrument of its development, yet being founded in the nature and constitution of things, and thus being beyond measurements of time, it synchronizes with God himself in its origin and continuance, and goes step by step with the divine authority in the assertion of its universal empire.

6. I am aware, that the high claims now put forth in favor of the religion of Christ, considered in its relation to the absolute truth, are not always allowed by that class of thinkers and inquirers to whom allusion was made in the beginning of the chapter.

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And what is more, they are not always, and perhaps not generally insisted on by those who are distinctively and truly known as Christians. Not unfrequently the Christian says, as if conscious of his inability to stand firm in the great battle of thought, and willing to find the first refuge that presents itself, that the religion of Christ, standing on a basis peculiar to itself, may be regarded as above and beyond reason. I confess that I hesitate in the acceptance of such expressions. So far from this being the correct view, there is a sense undoubtedly, in which it may be affirmed without presumption, that there is nothing above reason ; neither God nor the creatures of God ; neither men nor angels ; neither finite nor Infinite. If it be admitted that God exists, it is still true, that he is not available to us as an existence, and is not known to us as an existence, and his existence cannot be logically affirmed and accepted, except through the instrumentality of perception and reasoning. If indeed by reason be meant that sad semblance of reason, which by its own action is separated from, and is not enlightened and aided by contact with the everlasting truth ; in other words, that form of reason or semblance of reason, which in being separated from the great Source and Guide of all our faculties is perverted by ignorance, prejudice, and passion, then the matter presents itself in another aspect, and is entitled to another answer. But reason in the true sense, reason in the greatness of its intuitional, as well as its relational and inductive movement, reason such as God is able to incarnate inspirationally in the thought and intellect of man, has nothing above it. True reason is God's highest thought ; it holds a position which it cannot change ; it sustains an office which it cannot abnegate ; and the whole universe is not only dependent upon it for its revelation as an object of knowledge, but in all its coming progress accepts its aid, and marches in harmony with it.

7. — Let it be understood furthermore, that we have no controversy with much of that which is known in the history of human knowledge under the name of philosophy. The philosophers have had their time of affirmation; and undoubtedly they have said instructive things on a great variety of subjects. They have felt at liberty to speak with boldness on the subject now before us ; and sometimes with a smile of incredulity and even of opposition on their lips, as if it were a thing impossible, that the peasant of Nazareth, the man who was crucified, could hold up a light in the presence of the world's philosophic thought and culture. Nevertheless the child of the humble Judean mother made the attempt. We read that when he was only twelve

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years of age, the inspiration from the heavens was so strong upon him and his heart was so full, that he entered into this great controversy. And even then his understanding and answers were matters of astonishment. But the hand of the mother, who was chosen to bring him within the sphere of humanity, withdrew him from the contest. Her heart had prophetic intimations of the future ; but the time had not yet come. He dwelt in Nazareth, and with his heart open to the influx of the truth, he " increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.'' And when in the maturity of manhood he came again into the field, his opponents met him with all the appliances and aids of human learning and wisdom ; but ignorant of that divine philosophy which is baptized from the heavens, and therefore greatly disordered and defeated in the argument, they stopped the discussion by nailing Him to the Cross. But there is something in the man of truth which can never die. He passed on. In the language of the Scriptures, he went up on high. And philosophy, not understanding the things which are seen by faith and not by sight, looked here and there but could not find Him.

The teacher of Nazareth, dead but living, no longer a child but clothed with heavenly manhood, and who teaches by means of inspirations and infiuences wrought in the great school of the human heart, still claims his right to be heard. He is still a teacher of the Absolute Religion.

8. — It remains to be added, which I think will naturally occur to the reader, that the doctrine of the Absolute Religion pertains to essentials and not to the mere incidents of things ; to the principles rather than the form ; and not so much to institutions and ceremonies, as to that which underlies them.

It deals Avith those things, as we have already seen, which from their nature bear the stamp of per manency ; things which are because they cannot fail to be ; things which exist because non-existence is an impossibility ; whereas ceremonies, outward forms, institutions which have beginnings, changes and end, and mere outward arrangements and incidents of any kind, which are the result of specific and positive enactment, are temporary and unsettled in their nature and are short in their duration. And therefore, it will not be surprising, if there are many things which will not be noticed in what follows ; and simply because they fall out of the natural line of our remarks, and receive their appropriate attention in other connections and with other methods of treatment.

9. — The work which I have undertaken is de-

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signed to be pacific in its spirit, and is not necessarily controversial. It does not at all follow, because a writer deals with a controverted subject, that his discussion of such a subject must necessarily be harsh and controversial in its spirit or aspect. In what I have to say, I shall make but little reference to names and persons, and parties. I deal with principles rather than with men. And it is not beyond my hope that the truth will be found, and that charity will be unbroken.

CHAPTER II. The Personality of God

i.-^-God exists. The existence of God is a doctrine of the Absolute Religion. It is true there are said to be Atheists. Perhaps there may be individuals, not very many in number, to whom that name of error and sadness may apply. As long as great perversions of the human mind are possible, varying from the numerous forms of temporary disturbance to partial or total insanity, it is mot unphilosophical to suppose that atheism, in the case of a few individuals is a possibility. But I know not that there are atheistic communities or peoples. Humanity, into which we are to search for the development of principles, is represented by masses. The masses of mankind, as they are found associated in large societies and communities, have never rejected the idea of a God. No historian, from the days of Herodotus and Thucydides, has furnished us the records of an

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atheistic nation. We are justified therefore in taking the position, that the idea of a God belongs to humanity. As a product of intellectualism, it finds its origin in part in processes of reasoning founded on the perceptions, but has a still closer alliance with the intuitions ; and the Being whom it reveals commands by a law of our nature, the reverential and loving homage of the heart. So clearly is the doctrine of God's existence inscribed upon the works of outward nature, as they are interpreted by the human intellect, so strongly is this doctrine affirmed by the interior convictions and intuitions, and so necessary is it in response to the yearnings of the human heart, that I cannot feel the necessity of entering into argument in relation to it. I take it for granted.

2. — But there is a matter, connected with the divine existence, which cannot well be omitted, and which is of great importance. I refer to the

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doctrine of the Personality of God. Various circumstances have brought this question into prominence, and justify giving attention to it. Within a few years no small number of writers of acknowledged learning and ability have greatly disturbed the traditional belief as well as the religious hopes and consolations of a large portion of the Christian world, by affirming and attempting to prove the impersonality of the Divine Being. In accordance with our plan of inquiry we shall endeavor to show, that the Personality of God is taught by the absolute method ; and that the teachings of the Absolute Religion, in this particular as well as in others of a fundamentally religious nature, are in harmony with the Christian doctrine.

3. — It cannot well be doubted, that the personality of God is one of the doctrines contained in the teachings of Christ. It is difficult to see how he could address God as his Father, and in terms implying the greatest veneration and love, without believing in the Personality of God.

When, in the trials and sorrows of the Cross, he prayed, " Father forgive them for they know not what they do ;'' and when in the final agony of his spirit he said, " my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," it cannot well be supposed that he believed he was praying to an abstraction, or to a spiritual generalization, or a great undefined principle of life, instead of a percipient Being, who in the mental or spiritual sense had ears to hear, and a heart to feel. We cannot doubt, that the careful readers of the New Testament, in view of what is there said having a bearing upon the subject now before us, fully and earnestly accept the idea, as the only one which can be reasonably entertained, that

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Jesus believed in the divine personality. This wonderful Being, of whom we shall have occasion to speak more fully hereafter, had a heart that worshipped. His intellectual powers, which are sometimes overshadowed and concealed by the manifestations of his great goodness, revealed and identified the object of his worship ; and his loving heart, which added emotion to perception, accepted the revelation and yielded its homage. But affirm that God is not a personal being, only an underlying principle or causative force which permeates all existences and develops itself in all the forms of existence, without the intelligence and responsibility which are implied in personality and only by means of fixed and inexorable law, and from that moment it is intuitionally evident, that there is no revelation of an object of worship because no such object exists. And worship itself, which is so obviously one of the leading characteristics of the inward life of Christ, necessarily ceases, because there is no object to which it can attach itself.

4. — But philosophy, or something which goes under that great though often perverted name, has in these later times taken a different view. Those who are acquainted with the speculations and suggestions on this subject, associated, more or less distinctly with the names of Helvetius, Diderot, Con-

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dorcet, D'Alembert, Hume, Gibbon, Fichte, Hegel, Compte, Herbert Spencer, Mills, Strauss, Feuerbach and others, know well how confidently God has been announced as a principle of activity and causation, but without the recognized attribute of a person ; in other words as a great spiritual or psychical energy, pervading all things that exist, and holding a fixed and necessary relation to results, but without a distinct and available responsibility, and without even knowing or having any interest in knowing what the results of its own activity shall be. It is painful to know how widely such speculations have affected the thoughts and feelings of men. But this doctrine of God, which analyzed to its results is practically the annihilation of God, is a very different thing from the simple, sublime, and truly philosophic idea of God, which is justly understood as holding a place in the doctrines of Christ.

The God of the Bible, from the earliest to the latest portion of its announcements is a personal God. All that is said of God in that great treasury of thought, including the personal teachings ol Christ, with all its affirmations of his eternity and universality, recognizes and emphasizes the great and essential fact of his personality.

And we cannot hesitate in saying, that a true philosophy, when applied to the doctrines of reli-

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gion, in other words that the Absolute Religion, or Religion developed in the highest and truest human thought and feeling, is on the side of the biblical teachings.

5. — And let us now look at the subject in a little different aspect, with a view as briefly as possible, to bring it to the test of facts and reason. Before we can either affirm or deny the personality of God, we must first make personality itself, separate from the being to whom it attaches and of whom it is predicated, the subject of our thought. It is at this point that we detect what seems to us the beginning of a great error.

Personality is not merely a name ; nor is it merely an idea. In order to know fully what it is, we must go back from the name to the idea ; and from the idea or thought to the fact or truth which the idea represents. The name is merely an aid to the thought ; an auxiliary or help in the use of the thought. The thought or idea of personality, which arises necessarily in the mind under the appropriate circumstances of its origin, is justly regarded as a simple or elementary idea ; and as such it may be admitted that it is not susceptible of that logical process which is known as a definition. And yet not being what Mr. Locke would call an illusive or chimerical idea, but one harmonizing with the truth of things, it involves and affirms to our interior convictions and belief the fact or verity of the thing to which it relates. And hence, in connection with the necessary laws of mental action, we have a basis, and we cannot get it in any other way, for affirming the fact of personality. We say for instance in relation to ourselves and say it without hesitation that we are personal beings. And when we thus come to personality itself, in distinction from the idea of it ; when we reach the verity or reality of the fact in distinction from its intellectual representation, if it should happen that definitions in the usual logical form fail to make it more clearly known, on account of its interior and elementary nature, it is still both clear in itself as a matter of internal and intuitional revelation, and we can also obtain to some extent additional knowledge of what it is by the indirect process of indicating what it is not.

For instance, personality, in distinction from the idea or intellectual representation of personality, and considered as a fact or verity actually existing and of which it can be affirmed that it is, is not identical with existence, nor is it identical with knowledge, nor with power, nor with activity, nor with expansion. It may have its important relations with any or all of them ; but it requires to be kept distinct, both in its idea through which it is represented to

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2/ us, and also in its fact or realization. A Being, separate in the mere fact of existence from other beings, who has actually powers of perception and affection, and who can not only know and judge and feel, but has the volitional power which can carry his judgments and feelings to their appropriate issues, has necessarily a personality, whether his susceptibilities of knowledge be greater or less, or whether the mere extent or expansion of his existence be greater or less, or whether he comes within the limits of our comprehension or not. The convictions of the human mind, arising by their own necessary laws of being, require us in such a case to affirm the fact or realization of personality, and enable us to say without any misgivings, that we have before us a personal being. We have not merely the idea of personality, which is a matter of interior or subjective experience and nothing more ; but we have before us the fact of personality, in its outward or objective realization.

6. — With this view of the matter before us, and on such fundamental principles, we proceed to affirm that God is a personal being. The doctrine that God is an impersonal being, probably owes its origin in part to a mistake in the philosophical elements involved in the doctrine of personality, and in part to the fact, that God is without limits. As we have been in the habit of ascribing personality to beings who, in having form, are subject to the limitations of form, we easily fall into the habit of associating personality with such limitations, and at last are apt to adopt the conclusion, that where there are no limits, no well-defined boundaries of existence constituting a form, there can be no personality. Now it must be admitted, that in the extent or expansion of his being, God is without lim-. its ; but it does not at all follow that God, because he transcends the limitations of the human senses, and is not the subject of material measurement or any other measurement, is therefore not a personal God. The question of personality does not turn upon mere extent or expansion of being, whether physically or even psychically considered, but rather upon the traits or characteristics of being. In considering the subject of God's personality, it is a proper inquiry, whether he possesses intelligence which is cognizant of the fact of his own existence and power; whether he. has the capability of knowing and affirming the fixed relation of himself, both in perception and action, to that interior law of rectitude which is also a part of his being ; whether he possesses a volitional power correspondent to the powers of perception and the claims of moral obligation ? It is in the answer to such questions as

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2 9 these, that we find the basis of personality considered as a fact or realization. And if the answer is in the affirmative, then God most evidently possesses all the requisites of personality, and stands forth before the universe, not merely as a blind and unintelligent principle of movement, but as a personal God, capable of intelligent design and action, endowed with responsibility both to himself and to all beings that are dependent on him, and entitled, in the case of those who are dependent, to obedience and hornage.

7. — And it is proper to say here, as an indirect confirmation of our position, that humanity demands a God who can thus be recognized and worshipped. The instinct of reverence and homage, which evidently pervades the human heart, so much so that it has found its place as an attribute of humanity in all lands and all ages, requires, and cannot be satisfied with anything short of a personal God. In the view of the great masses of men, to deny the personality of God, is, to all practical purposes and results, much the same, as we have already intimated as to deny the existence of God. So that we run no hazard in saying, that a personal God is one of the great religious necessities of humanity. Religion is the interior and domestic tie, which makes the united family of the finite and the Infinite.

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And without a Being - , who is not only supreme in his attributes, but who is approachable, and can be addressed and confided in, on the basis furnished by a deific personality, the human race is necessarily left in the condition of a bewildered and sorrowing orphanage.

8. — And we may add that the opposite doctrine that which denies God's personality, seems to us to be full of danger in other respects. It is not only the abnegation of religion, but of practical morality. The doctrine of impersonality, admitting that it sometimes comes before us with learned and imposing pretensions, will be found, if allowed to go unquestioned, to be attended not only with the rupture of God and man, but of man and his fellow-man. It is a doctrine which not only strikes boldly at the religious intuitions of the great heart of humanity, but is an inlet, through its want of practical power, to hostility, fraud, cruelty, and all varieties of crime. ~No theory of practical morals has ever been constructed on the basis of the impersonality of God, which is available against the mighty evils that continually imperil man's social condition. The audacity of wrong and crime is not frightened by an abstraction. Nor is it much afraid of a positive principle of life, which has no self-regulated thought and volition. If it were possible for impersonality to

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leave us a God at all, which it is not, it would be a God with no eyes to see, and no ears to hear, and no hands to handle, and no head to think, and no heart to feel, and no will to execute ; — a God, if any one should object to the material form of the expressions, with nothing which our spiritual eyes could see, or our spiritual ears could hear, or our hearts' necessities could appeal to ; — a God, in any light in which it is possible to consider him, without a voice to cheer us in our efforts to do right, and without a hand to help us against the dangers which would certainly assail and overwhelm us.