Christianity and Ethics: A Handbook of Christian Ethics

by Archibald B. D. Alexander

2. PROPHECY

The dominant factor of Old Testament Ethics lay in the influence exerted by the prophets. They, and not the priests, are the great moralists of Israel. The prophets were speakers for God, the interpreters of His will. They were the moral guides of the people, the champions of integrity in political life, not less than witnesses for individual purity.[13]

We may sum up the ethical significance of the Hebrew prophets in three features.

(1) They were preachers of personal righteousness. In {47} times of falsehood and hypocrisy they were witnesses for integrity and truth, upholding the personal virtues of justice, sincerity, and mercy against the idolatry and formalism of the priesthood. 'What doth the Lord require of thee,' said Micah, 'but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.'[14] In the same strain Isaiah exclaimed, 'Bring no more vain oblations, but wash you and make you clean.'[15] And so also Habakkuk has affirmed in words which became the keynote of Paul's theology and the watchword of the Reformation—'The just shall live by faith.'[16]

(2) They were the advocates of the rights of man, of equity and justice between man and man. They denounce the tyranny of kings, and the luxury of the nobles. They protest against the oppression of the poor and befriend the toilers of the cities. They proclaim the worth of man as man. They reveal Jehovah as the God of the common people, and seek to mitigate the burdens which lie upon the enslaved and down-trodden.

(3) They were the apostles of Hope. Not only did they seek to lift their fellow-men above their present calamities, but they proclaimed a message of peace and triumph which was to be evolved out of trouble. A great promise gradually loomed on the horizon, and hope began to centre in an anointed Deliverer. The Hebrew prophets were not probably conscious of the full significance of their own predictions. Like all true poets, they uttered greater things than they knew. The prophet who most clearly outlines this truth is the second Isaiah. As he looks down the ages he sees that healing is to be brought about through suffering, the suffering of a Sinless one. Upon this mysterious figure who is to rise up in the latter days is to be laid the burden of humanity. No other, not even St. Paul himself, has grasped so clearly the great secret of atonement or given so touching a picture of the power of vicarious suffering as this unknown prophet of Israel.

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3. THE POETICAL BOOKS

Passing from the prophets to the poets of Israel—and especially to the book of Psalms—the devotional manual of the people, reflecting the moral and religious life of the nation at the various stages of its development—we find the same exalted character of God as a God of Righteousness, hating evil and jealous for devotion, the same profound sense of sin and the same high vocation of man. The Hebrew nation was essentially a poetic people,[17] and their literature is full of poetry. But poetry is not systematic. It is not safe, therefore, to deduce particular tenets of faith or moral principles from passages which glow with intensity of feeling. But if a nation's character is revealed in its songs, the deep spirituality and high moral tone of Israel are clearly reflected in that body of religious poetry which extends over a period of a thousand years, from David to the Maccabean age. It is at once national and personal, and is a wonderful record of the human heart in its various moods and yearnings. Underlying all true poetry there is a philosophy of life. God, for the Hebrew psalmist, is the one pervading presence. He is not a mere impersonation of the powers of nature, but a personal Being, righteous and merciful, with whom man stands in the closest relations. Holy and awful, indeed, hating iniquity and exacting punishment upon the wicked, He is also tender and pitiful—a Father of the oppressed, who bears their burdens, forgives their iniquities, and crowns them with tender mercy.[18] All nature speaks to the Hebrew of God. He is no far-off creator, but immanent in all His works.[19] He presides over mankind, and provides for the manifold wants of his creatures. It is this thought which gives unity to the nation, and binds the tribes into a common brotherhood. God is their personal friend. In war and peace, in worship and labour, at home and in exile, it is to Jehovah they look {49} for strength and light and joy. He is their Shepherd and Redeemer, under whose wings they trust. Corresponding to this sublime faith, the virtues of obedience and fidelity are dwelt upon, while the ideal of personal righteousness and purity is constantly held forth. It is no doubt largely temporal blessings which the psalmists emphasise, and the rewards of integrity are chiefly those of material and earthly prosperity. The hope of the future life is nowhere clearly expressed in the Old Testament, and while in the Psalter here and there a dim yearning for a future with God breaks forth, hardly any of these poems illumine the destiny of man beyond the grave. The hope of Israel was limited mostly to this earth. The land beyond the shadows does not come within their purview. Like a child, the psalmist is content to know that his divine Father is near him here and now. When exactly the larger hope emerged we cannot say. But gradually, with the breaking up of the national life and under the pressure of suffering, a clearer vision dawned. With the limitations named, it is a sublime outlook upon life and a high-toned morality which the Psalter discloses. Poetry, indeed, idealises, and no doubt the Israelites did not always live up to their aspirations; but men who could give utterance to a faith so clear, to a penitence so deep, and to longings so lofty and spiritual as these Psalms contain are not the least among the heralds of the kingdom of Christ.

We cannot enlarge upon the ethical ideas of the other writings of the Old Testament, the books of Wisdom, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job. Their teaching, while not particularly lofty, is generally healthy and practical, consisting of homely commonplaces and shrewd observations upon life and conduct. The motives appealed to are not always the highest, and frequently have regard only to earthly prosperity and worldly policy. It must not, however, be overlooked that moral practice is usually allied with the fear of God, and the right choice of wisdom is represented as the dictate of piety not less than the sanction of prudence. The writers of the Wisdom literature are the {50} humanists of their age. As distinguished from the idealism of the prophets, they are realists who look at life in a somewhat utilitarian way. With the prophets, however, they are at one in regarding the inferiority of ceremonial to obedience and sincerity. God is the ruler of the world, and man's task is to live in obedience to Him. What God requires is correct outward behaviour, self-restraint, and consideration of others.

In estimating the Ethics of Israel the fact that it was a preparatory stage in the revelation of God's will must not be overlooked. We are not surprised, therefore, that, judged by the absolute standard of the New Testament, the morality of the Old Testament must be pronounced imperfect. In two respects at least, in intent and extent, it is deficient.

(1) It is lacking in Depth. There is a tendency to dwell upon the sufficiency of external acts rather than the necessity of inward disposition. At the same time, in the Psalter and prophecy inward purity is recognised.[20] Further, the character of Jehovah is sometimes presented in a repellent aspect; as in the threatenings of the second commandment; the treatment of the children of Achan and the Sons of Korah; the seeming injustice of God, implied in the complaint of Moses, and the protests of Abraham and David. But again there are not wanting more kindly features of the Divine Being; and the Fatherhood of God finds frequent expression. Though the penal code is severe, a gentler spirit shines through many of its provisions, and protection is afforded to the wage-earner, the dependent, and the poor; while the care of slaves, foreigners, and even lower animals is not overlooked.[21] Again, it has been noticed that the motives to which the Old Testament appeals are often mercenary. Material prosperity plays an important part as an inducement to well-doing. The good which the pious patriarch or royal potentate contemplates is something which is calculated to enrich himself or advance his people. But here we must not forget that {51} God's revelation is progressive, and His dealing with man educative. There is naturally a certain accommodation of the divine law to the various stages of the moral apprehension of the Jewish people. Gradually the nation is being carried forward by the promise of material benefits to the deeper and more inward appreciation of spiritual blessings.

(2) It is lacking in Scope. In regard to universality the Hebrew ideal, it must be acknowledged, is deficient. God is usually represented as the God of Israel alone, and not as the God of all men, and the obligations of veracity, honesty, and mercy are confined within the limits of the nation. It is true that a prominent commandment given to Israel and endorsed by our Lord runs thus: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'[22] But the extent of the obligation seems to be restricted by the context: 'Thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people.' It is contended that the word translated 'neighbour' bears a wider import than the English term, and is really applicable to any person. The larger idea is expressed in vv. 33, 34, where the word 'stranger' or 'foreigner' is substituted for neighbour. And there are passages in which the stranger is regarded as the special client of God, and is enjoined to look to Him for protection.

The Jews were not in practice, however, faithful to the humanitarianism of their law, and, in keeping with other nations, showed a tendency to restrict divine favours within the limits of their own land, and to maintain throughout their history an attitude of aloofness and repellent isolation which even amounted to intolerance towards other races. In early days, however, the obligation of hospitality was regarded as sacred.[23] Nor must we forget that, whatever may have been the Jewish practice, the promise enshrined in their revelation involves the unity of mankind; while several of the prophecies and Psalms look forward to a world-wide blessing.[24] In Isaiah we even read, 'God of the whole earth shall He be called.'[25]

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The stream of preparation for Christianity thus flowed steadily through three channels, the Greek, the Roman, and the Jew. Each contributed something to the fullness of the time.

The problem of Greek civilisation was the problem of freedom, the realisation of self-dependence and self-determination. In the pursuit of these ends Greece garnered conclusions which are the undying possessions of the world. If to the graces of self-abasement, meekness and charity it remained a stranger, it gave a new worth to the individual, and showed that without the virtues of wisdom, courage, steadfastness and justice man could not attain to moral character.

The Roman's gift was unbending devotion to duty. With a genius for rule he forced men into one polity; and by levelling material barriers he enabled the nations to commune, and made a highway for the message of freedom and brotherhood. But, intoxicated with material glory, he became blind to spiritual good, and in his universal toleration he emptied all faiths of their content, driving the masses to superstition, and the few who yearned for a higher life to withdrawal from the world.

The Jewish contribution was righteousness. Not specially distinguished by intellectual powers, nor gifted in political enterprise, his endowment was spiritual insight, and by his dispersion throughout the world he made others the sharers of his inheritance. But his tendency was to keep his privilege to himself, or so to load it with legal restrictions as to bar its acceptance for strangers; and in his pride of isolation he failed to recognise his Deliverer when He came.

Thus, negatively and positively, by failure and by partial attainment, the world was prepared for Him who was the desire of all nations. In Christ were gathered up the wisdom of the Greek, the courage of the Roman, the righteousness of the Jew; and He who came not to destroy but to fulfil at once interpreted and satisfied the longings of the ages.

[1] Apologia, pp. 38-9.

[2] Cf. Adam, Vitality of Platonism, p. 3.

[3] Nic. Ethics, bk. i. chap. 5.

[4] histharnikai ergasiai, Arist., Politics, iii. 'There is nothing common between a master and his slave,' Nic. Ethics, viii.

[5] Butcher, Harvard Lectures on Greek Subjects, quoted by Barbour, Philos. Study of Christian Ethics, p. 11. Cf. also Burnet, Ethics of Aristotle, p. 73. 'The "mean" is really the true nature of the soul when fully developed.'

[6] Hist. of Europ. Morals, vol. i. chap. ii.

[7] See Author's Ethics of St. Paul for further discussion of relation of Paul to Stoics.

[8] Cf. E. Caird, Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, vol. i. p. 48.

[9] Cf. Caird, idem. Pfleiderer, Vorbereitung des Christentums in der Griech. Philos.; Wenley, Preparation for Christianity.

[10] Exod. xx.; Deut. v.

[11] Ex. xx.-xxiii.

[12] Amos v. 25; Hos. vi. 6; Isa. i. 11-13.

[13] Cf. Wallace, Lectures and Essays on Natural Theol. and Ethics, p. 183.

[14] Micah vi. 8.

[15] Isa. i. 13-17; Micah vi. 7.

[16] Hab. ii. 4; cf. Rom. i. 17; Gal. iii. 2.

[17] Though Houston Chamberlain, in his recent work, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, maintains that they were 'a most prosaic, materialistic people, without any real sense of poetry.'

[18] Ps. 51.

[19] Ps. 19.

[20] Ps. 51; Isa. 1.

[21] Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; Jer. xxii. 13-17; Matt. iii 5; Deut. xxv. 4.

[22] Lev. xix. 18.

[23] Gen. xviii. xix.

[24] Isa. lxi.; Ps. xxii. 27; xlviii. 2-10; lxxxvii.

[25] Isa. liv. 5.

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SECTION B

PERSONALITY

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CHAPTER IV

THE ESTIMATE OF MAN

Having thus far laid the foundations of our study by a discussion of its presuppositions and sources, we are now prepared to consider man as the personal subject of the new life. The spirit of God which takes hold of man and renews his life must not be conceived as a foreign power breaking the continuity of consciousness. The natural is the basis of the supernatural. It is not a new personality which is created; it is the old that is transformed and completed. If there was not already implicit in man that which predisposed him for the higher life, a consciousness to which the spirit could appeal, then Christianity would be simply a mechanical or magical influence without ethical significance and having no relation to the past history of the individual. But that is not the teaching of our Lord or of His apostles. We are bound, therefore, to assume a certain substratum of powers, physical, mental and moral, as constituting the raw material of which the new personality is formed. The spirit of God does not quench the natural faculties of man, but works through and upon them, raising them to a higher value.[1]

I. But before proceeding to a consideration of these elements of human consciousness to which Christianity appeals, we must glance at two opposite theories of human nature, either of which, if the complete view of man, would be inimical to Christianity.[2]

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1. The first view is that man by nature is morally good. His natural impulses are from birth wholly virtuous, and require only to be left to their own operation to issue in a life of perfection. Those who favour this contention claim the support of Scripture. Not only does the whole tone of the Bible imply the inherent goodness of primitive man, but many texts both in the Old and New Testaments suggest that God made man upright.[3] Among the Greeks, and especially the Stoics, this view prevailed. All nature was regarded as the creation of perfect reason, and the primitive state as one of uncorrupted innocence. Pelagius espoused this doctrine, and it continued to influence dogmatic theology not only in the form of Semi-Pelagianism, but even as modifying the severer tenets of Augustine. The theory received fresh importance during the revolutionary movement of the eighteenth century, and found a strong exponent in Rousseau. 'Let us sweep away all conventions and institutions of man's making and get back to the simplicity of a primitive age.' The man of nature is guileless, and his natural instincts would preserve him in uncorrupted purity if they were not perverted by the artificial usages of society. So profoundly did this theory dominate the thoughts of men that its influence may be detected not only in the political fanaticism which found expression in the French Revolution, but also in the practical views of the Protestant Church acting as a deterrent to missionary effort.[4] This view of human nature, though not perhaps formally stated, finds expression in much of the literature of the present day. Professor James cites Theodore Parker and other leaders of the liberal movement in New England of last century as representatives of the tendency.[5] These writers do not wholly ignore moral effect, but they make light of sin, and regard it not as something positive, but merely as a stage in the development of man.

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2. The other theory of human nature goes to the opposite extreme. Man by nature is utterly depraved, and his natural instincts are wholly bad. Those who take this view also appeal to Scripture: 'Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin.' Many passages in the New Testament, and especially in the writings of St. Paul, seem to emphasise the utter degradation of man. It was not, however, until the time of Augustine that this idea of innate depravity was formulated into a doctrine. The Augustinean dogma has coloured all later theology. In the Roman Catholic Church, even in such a writer as Pascal, and in Protestantism, under the influence of Calvin, the complete corruption of man's nature has been depicted in the blackest hues.

These theories of human nature represent aspects of truth, and are false only in their isolation.

The doctrine that man is innocent by nature is not in agreement with history. Nowhere is the noble savage to be found. The primitive man exhibits the same tendencies as his more civilised neighbour, and his animal passions are indulged without control of reason or consideration for others. Indeed, Hobbes's view of early society as a state of war and rapacity is much truer to fact than Rousseau's. The noble savage is simply a fiction of the imagination, an abstraction obtained by withdrawing him from all social environment. But even could we conceive of a human being kept from infancy in isolation, he would not fulfil the true idea of virtue, but would simply develop into a negative creature, a mutilated being bereft of all that constitutes our notion of humanity. Such experiences as are possible only in society—all forms of goodness as suggested by such words as 'love,' 'sympathy,' 'service'—would never emerge at all. The native instincts of man are simply potencies or capacities for morality; they must have a life of opportunity for their evolution and exercise. The abstract self prior to and apart from all objective experience is an illusion. It is only in relation to a world of moral beings that the moral life becomes possible for man. The innocence which the advocates of this theory contend for is {58} something not unlike the non-rational existence of the animal. It is true that the brute is not immoral, but neither is it moral. The whole significance of the passions as they exist in man lies in the fact that they are not purely animal, but, since they belong to man, are always impregnated with reason. It is reason that gives to them their moral worth, and it is because man must always put his self into every desire or impulse that it becomes the instrument either of virtue or of vice.[6]

But if the theory of primitive purity is untenable, not less so is that of innate depravity. Here, also, its advocates are not consistent with themselves. Even the systems of theology derived from Augustine do not contend that man was created with an evil propensity. His sin was the result of an historical catastrophe. In his paradisiacal condition man is conceived as possessing a nobility and innocence of nature far beyond that even which Rousseau depicted. Milton, in spite of his Calvinistic puritanism, has painted a picture of man's ideal innocence which for idyllic charm is unequalled in literature.[7] Nor does historical inquiry bear out the theory of the utter depravity of man. The latest anthropological research into the condition of primitive man suggests rather that even the lowest forms of savage life are not without some dim consciousness of a higher power and some latent capacity for good.[8] Finally, these writers are not more successful when they claim the support of the Bible. Not only are there many examples of virtue in patriarchal times, but, as we have seen, there are not a few texts which imply the natural goodness of man. Our Lord repeatedly assumes the affinity with goodness of those who had not hitherto come into contact with the Gospel, as in the case of Jairus, the rich young ruler, and the Syrophenician woman. It has been affirmed by Wernle[9] that the Apostle Paul in the interests of salvation grossly {59} exaggerates the condition of the natural man. 'He violently extinguished every other light in the world so that Jesus might shine in it alone.' But this surely is a misstatement. It is true that no more scathing denunciation of sinful human nature has ever been presented than the account of heathen immorality to be found in the first chapter of Romans. Yet the apostle does not actually affirm, nor even imply, that pagan society was so utterly corrupt that it had lost all knowledge of moral good. Though so bad as to be beyond hope of recovery by natural effort, it was not so bad as to have quenched in utter darkness the light which lighteth every man.

3. Christianity, while acknowledging the partial truth of both of these theories, reconciles them. If, on the one hand, man were innately good and could of himself attain to righteousness, there would be no need of a gospel of renewal. But history and experience alike show that that is not the case. If, on the other hand, man were wholly bad, had no susceptibility for virtue and truth, then there would be nothing in him, as we have seen, which could respond to the Christian appeal.[10] Christianity alone offers an answer to the question in which Pascal presents the great antithesis of human nature: 'If man was not made for God, how is it that he can be happy only in God? And if he is made for God, how is he so opposite to God?'[11] However, then, we may account for the presence of evil in human nature, a true view of Christianity involves the conception of a latent spiritual element in man, a capacity for goodness to which his whole being points. Matter itself may be said not merely to exist for spirit, but to have within it already the potency of the higher forms of life; and just as nature is making towards humanity, and in humanity at last finds itself; as

'Striving to be man, the worm
Mounts through all the spires of form,'[13]

{60} so man, even in his most primitive state, has within him the promise of higher things. No theory of his origin can interfere with the assumption that he belongs to a moral Sphere, and is capable of a life which is shaping itself to spiritual ends. Whatever be man's past history and evolution, he has from the beginning been made in God's image, and bears the divine impress in all the lineaments of body and soul. His degradation cannot wholly obliterate his inherent nobility, and indeed his actual corruption bears witness to his possible holiness. Granting the hypothesis of evolution, matter even in its crudest beginnings contains potentially all the rich variety of the natural and spiritual life. The reality of a growing thing lies in its highest form of being. In the light of the last we explain the first. If the universe is, as science pronounces, an organic totality which is ever converting its promise into actuality, then 'the ultimate interpretation even of the lowest existence of the world, cannot be given except on principles which are adequate to explain the highest.'[13] Christian morality is therefore nothing else than the morality prepared from all eternity, and is but the highest realisation of that which man even at his lowest has ever been, though unconsciously, striving after. All that is best and highest in man, all that he is capable of yet becoming, has really existed within him from the very first, just as the flower and leaf and fruit are contained implicitly in the seedling. This is the Pauline view of human nature. Jesus Christ, according to the apostle, is the End and Consummation of the whole creation. Everywhere in all men there is a capacity for Christ. Whatever be his origin, man comes upon the stage of being bearing within him a great and far-reaching destiny. There is in him, as Browning says, 'a tendency to God.' He is not simply what he is now, but all that he is yet to be.

II. Assuming, then, the inherent spirituality of man, we may now proceed to examine his moral consciousness with a view to seeing how its various constituents form what we have called the substratum of the Christian life.

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1. We must guard against seeming to adopt the old and discredited psychology which divides man into a number of separate and independent faculties. Man is not made like a machine, of a number of adjusted parts. He is a unity, a living organism, in which every part has something of all the others; and all together, animated by one spirit, constitute a Living whole which we call personality. While the Bible is rich in terms denoting the different constituents of man, neither the Old Testament nor the New regards human nature as a plurality of powers. A bind of unity or hierarchy of the natural faculties is assumed, and amid all the difference of function and variety of operation it is undeniable that the New Testament writers generally, and particularly St. Paul, presuppose a unity of consciousness—a single ego, or Soul. It is unnecessary to discuss the question, much debated by Biblical psychologists, as to whether the apostle recognises a threefold or a twofold division of man.[14] Our view is that he recognised only a twofold division, body and soul, which, however, he always regarded as constituting a unity, the body itself being psychical or interpenetrated with spirit, and the spirit always acting upon and working through the physical powers.

Man is a unique phenomenon in the world. Even on his physical side he is not a piece of dead matter, but is instinct through and through with spirit. And on his psychical side he is not an unsubstantial wraith, but a being inconceivable apart from outward embodiment. Perhaps the most general term which we may adopt is psyche or Soul—the living self or vital and animating principle which is at once the seat of all bodily sensation and the source of the higher cognitive faculties.

2. The fact of ethical interest from which we must proceed is that man, in virtue of his spiritual nature, is akin to God, and participates in the three great elements of the divine Personality—thought, love and will.[15] Personality has been called 'the culminating fact of the {62} universe.' And it is the task of man to realise his true personality—to fulfil the law of his highest self. In this work he has to harmonise and bring to the unity of his personal life, by means of one dominating force, the various elements of his nature—his sensuous, emotional, and rational powers. By the constitution of his being he belongs to a larger world, and when he is true to himself he is ever reaching out towards it. From the very beginning of life, and even in the lowest phases of his nature he has within him the potency of the divine. He carries the infinite in his soul, and by reason of his very existence shares the life of God. The value of his soul in this sense is repeatedly emphasised in scripture. In our Lord's teaching it is perhaps the most distinctive note. The soul, or self-conscious spiritual ego, is spoken of as capable of being 'acquired' or 'lost.'[16] It is acquired or possessed when a man seeks to regain the image in which he was created. It is lost when he refuses to respond to those spiritual influences by which Christ besets him, and by means of which the soul is moulded into the likeness of God.

3. A full presentation of this subject would involve a reference even to the physical powers which form an integral part of man and witness to his eternal destiny.

(1) The very body is to be redeemed and sanctified, and made an instrument of the new life in Christ. The extremes of asceticism and self-indulgence, both of which found advocates in Greek philosophy and even in the early Church, have no countenance in scripture. Evil does not reside in the flesh, as the Greeks held, but in the will which uses the flesh for its base ends. Not mutilation but transformation, not suppression but consecration is the Christian ideal. The natural is the basis of the spiritual. Man is the Temple of God, every part of which is sacred. Christ claims to be King of the body as of every other domain of life. The secret of spiritual progress does not consist in the unflinching destruction of the flesh, but in its firm but kindly discipline for loyal service. It is not, therefore, by {63} leaving the body behind but by taking it up into our higher self that we become spiritual. As Browning says,

'Let us cry all good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now
Than flesh helps soul.'

Without dwelling further upon the physical elements of man, there are three constituents or functions of personality prominent in the New Testament which claim our consideration, reason, conscience and will. It is just because man possesses, or is mind, conscience and will, that he is capable of responding to the life which Christ offers, and of sharing in the divine character which he reveals.

(2) The term nous, or reason, is of frequent occurrence in the New Testament. Christianity highly honours the intellectual powers of man and accords to the mind an important rôle in apprehending and entering into the thoughts and purposes of God. 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind,' says Jesus. Many are disposed to think that the exercise of faith, the immediate organ of spiritual apprehension, is checked by the interference of reason. But so far from faith and reason being opposed, not only are they necessary to each other, but in all real faith there is an element of reason. In all religious feeling, as in morality, art, and other spheres of human activity, there is the underlying element of reason which is the characteristic of all the activities of a self-conscious intelligence. To endeavour to elicit that element, to infuse into the spontaneous and unsifted conceptions of religious experience the objective clearness, necessity and organic unity of thought—is the legitimate aim of science, in religion as in other spheres. It would be strange if in the highest of all provinces of human experience intelligence must renounce her claim.[17] The Ritschlian value-judgment theory in its disparagement of philosophy is practically a dethronement of reason. And the protest of Pragmatism and the voluntarists {64} generally against what they term 'Intellectualism'[18] and their distrust of the logical faculty, are virtually an avowal of despair and a resort to agnosticism, if not to scepticism. If we are to renounce the quest for objective truth, and accept 'those ideas only which we can assimilate, validate, corroborate,'[19] those ideas in short which are 'practically useful in guiding us to desirable issues,' then it would seem we are committed to a world of subjective caprice and confusion and must give up the belief in a rational view of the universe.

(3) In spite of the wonderful suggestiveness of M. Bergson's philosophy, we are unable to accept the distinction which that writer draws between intuition and intelligence, in which he seems to imply that intuition is the higher of the two activities. Intelligence, according to this writer, is at home exclusively in spatial considerations, in solids, in geometry, but it is to be repelled as a foreign element when it comes to deal with life. Bergson would exclude rational thought and intelligence from life, creation, and initiative. The clearest evidence of intuition is in the works of great artists. 'What is implied is that in artistic creation, in the work of genius and imagination, we have pure novelty issuing from no premeditated or rational idea, but simply pure irrationality and unaccountableness.'[20] The work of art cannot be predicated; it is beyond reason, as life is beyond logic and law.[21] But so far from finding life unintelligible, it would be nearer the truth to say that man's reason can, strictly speaking, understand nothing else.[22] 'Instinct finds,' says Bergson, 'but does not search. Reason searches but cannot find.'[23] 'But,' adds Professor Dewey, 'what we find is meaningless save as measured by searching, and so instincts and passions must be elevated into reason.'[24] In the lower creatures instinct does the {65} work of reason—sufficiently for the simple conditions in which the animal lives. And in the earlier stages of human life instinct plays an important part. But when man, both as an individual and as humanity, advances to a more complex life, instinct is unequal to the new task confronting him. We cannot be content to be guided by instinct. Reason asserts itself and seeks to permeate all our experiences, and give unity and purpose to all our thoughts and acts.

The recent disparagement of intellectualism is probably a reaction against the extreme absolutism of German idealism which, beginning with Kant, found fullest expression in Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. But the true way to meet exclusive rationalism is not to discredit the function of mind, but to give to it a larger domain of experience. We do not exalt faith by emptying it of all intellectual content and reducing it to mere subjective feeling; nor do we explain genius by ascribing its acts to blind, unthinking impulse. 'The real is the rational,' says Hegel. Truth, in other words, presupposes a rational universe which we, as rational beings, must assume in all our thought and effort. To set up faith against reason, or intuition against intelligence is to set the mind against itself. We cannot set up an order of facts, as Professor James would have us do, outside the intellectual realm; for what does not fall within our experience can have for us no meaning, and what for us has no meaning cannot be an object of faith. An ineradicable belief in the rationality of the world is the ultimate basis of all art, morality and religion. To rest in mere intuition or emotion and not to seek objective truth would be for man to renounce his true prerogative and to open the door for all kinds of superstition and caprice.

III. In the truest sense it may be claimed that this is the teaching of Christianity. When Christ says that we are to love God with our minds He seems to imply that there is such a thing as intelligent affection. The distinctive feature of our Lord's claim is that God is not satisfied when His creatures render a merely implicit obedience; He {66} desires also the enthusiastic use of their intellect, intent on knowing everything that it is possible for men to know about His character and ways. And is there not something sublime in this demand of God that the noblest part of man should be consecrated to Him? God reveals Himself in Christ to our highest; and He would have us respond to His manifestations with our highest. Nor is this the attitude of Christ only. The Apostle Paul also honours the mind, and gives to it the supreme place as the organ of apprehending and appropriating divine truth. Mr. Lecky brings the serious charge against Christianity that it habitually disregards the virtues of the intellect. If there is any truth in this statement it refers, not to the genius of the Gospel itself, nor to the earlier exponents of it, but rather to the Church in those centuries which followed the conversion of Constantine. No impartial reader of St. Paul's Epistles can aver that the apostle made a virtue of ignorance and credulity. These documents, which are the earliest exposition of the mind of Christ, impress us rather with the intellectual boldness of their attempt to grapple with the greatest problems of life. Paul was essentially a thinker; and, as Sabatier says, is to be ranked with Plato and Aristotle, Augustine and Kant, as one of the mightiest intellectual forces of the world. But not content with being a thinker himself, he sought to make his converts thinkers too, and he does not hesitate to make the utmost demand upon their reasoning faculties. He assumes a natural capacity in man for apprehending the truth, and appeals to the mind rather than to the emotions. The Gospel is styled by him 'the word of truth,' and he bids men 'prove all things.' Worship is not a meaningless ebullition of feeling or a superstitious ritual, but a form of self-expression which is to be enlightened and guided by thought. 'I will pray with the understanding and sing with the understanding.'

It is indeed a strong and virile Christianity which Paul and the other apostles proclaim. It is no magic spell they seek to exert. They are convinced that there is that in {67} the mind of man which is ready to respond to a thoughtful Gospel. If men will only give their unprejudiced minds to God's Word, it is able to make them 'wise unto salvation.' It would lead us beyond the scope of this chapter to consider the peculiar Pauline significance of faith. It is enough to say that while he does not identify it with intellectual assent, as little does he confine it to mere subjective assurance. It is the primary act of the human spirit when brought into contact with divine truth, and it lies at the root of a new ethical power, and of a deeper knowledge of God. If the apostle appears to speak disparagingly of wisdom it is the wisdom of pride, of 'knowledge that puffeth up.' He warns Timothy against 'science falsely so called.' On the whole St. Paul exalts the intellect and bids men attain to the full exercise of their mental powers. 'Be not children in understanding: but in understanding be men.'[25]

If, as we have seen, the body be an integral part of man, and has its place and function in the Christian life, not less, but even more, has the mind a special ethical importance. It is to the intelligence that Christianity appeals, and it is with the rational faculties that moral truth is apprehended and applied to life. Reason in its broadest sense is the most distinctive feature of man, and by means of it he exerts his mightiest influence upon the world. Mental and moral growth are closely connected, and personal character is largely moulded by thought. 'As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.' Not only at the beginning of the new life, but in all its after stages the mind is an important factor, and its consecration and cultivation are laid upon us as an obligation by Him in whose image we have been made, and whom to know and serve is our highest end.

[1] See Author's Ethics of St. Paul.

[2] Cf. Murray, Sandbank of Christian Ethics. See also Hegel, Phil. der Religion, vol. ii. p. 210 ff., where the antithesis is finely worked out.

[3] Gen. i. 26; Eccles. vii. 29; Col. iii. 10; James iii. 9.

[4] See Hugh Miller's Essays, quoted by Murray, op. cit., p. 137.

[5] Cf. W. James, Varieties of Religious Experience, pp. 81-86.

[6] Cf. Goethe's Faust. See also Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung for trenchant criticism of Rousseau.

[7] Murray, idem.

[8] Max Müller, Fraser, Golden Bough, and others.

[9] Anfänge des Christentums.

[10] Cf. Ottley, Christian Ideas and Ideals, p. 52. 'Christianity does justice both to man's inherent instinct that he has been made for God, and to his sense of unworthiness and incapacity.'

[11] Pensées, part ii. art. 1.

[12] Emerson.

[13] Ed. Caird, Critical Philosophy of Kant, p. 35.

[14] See Author's Ethics of St. Paul.

[15] Ottley, idem, p. 55.

[16] Luke xxi. 19.

[17] Cf. John Caird, Introd. to the Philosophy of Religion.

[18] Cf. Wm. James's Pragmatism and A Pluralistic World.

[19] Idem, p. 201.

[20] Cf. Bosanquet, The Principles of Individuality and Value.

[21] Bergson, Evol. Creat., p. 174 f.

[22] Cf. E. Caird, Kant, vol. ii. pp. 530 and 535.

[23] Evol. Creat., p. 159.

[24] Hib. Jour., July 1911.

[25] Some sentences in the above are borrowed from the writer's Ethics of St. Paul.

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