Christianity and Ethics: A Handbook of Christian Ethics

by Archibald B. D. Alexander

II

THE HUMAN RESPONSE

Possession of power involves the obligation to use it. The force is given; it has to be appropriated. The spirit of Christ is not offered in order to free a man from the duties of the moral life. Man is not simply the recipient of divine energy. He has to make it his own and to work it out by his self-determinative activity. Nevertheless the relation of the divine spirit to the human personality is a subject of great perplexity, involving the psychological problem of the connection of the divine and the human in life generally. If in the last resort God is the ultimate source of all life, the absolute Being, who

'Can rejoice in naught
Save only in Himself and what Himself hath wrought';

that truth must be held in harmony with the facts of divine immanence and human experience. The divine spirit holds within His grasp all reality, and by His self-communicating activity makes the world of nature and of life possible. But that being granted, how are we to conceive the relation of that Spirit to man with his distinct individuality, with {170} his sense of working out a future and a fate in which the Absolute may indeed be fulfilling its purpose, but which are none the less man's own achievement? That is the crux of the problem. The outstanding fact which bears upon this problem is the general character of our experience, the growth of which is not the mere laying of additional material upon a passive subject by an external power, but is a true development, a process in which the subject is himself operative in the unfolding of his own potentialities. Without dwelling further upon this question it may be well to bear in mind two points: (1) The growth of experience is a gradual entrance into conscious possession of what we implicitly are and potentially have from the beginning. Duty, for example, is not something alien from a man, something superimposed by a power not himself. It lies implicit in his nature as his ideal and vocation. The moral life is the life in which a man comes to 'know himself,' to apprehend himself as he truly is. (2) In this development of experience we ourselves are active and self-organising. We are really making ourselves, and are conscious, that even while we are the instruments of a higher power, we are working out our own individuality, exercising our own freedom and determination.[7] The teaching of the New Testament is in full accord with this position. If, on the one hand, St. Paul states that every moral impulse is due to the inspiration of God, no less emphatic is he in ascribing to man himself full freedom of action. 'The ethical sense of responsibility,' says Johannes Weiss,[8] 'the energy for struggle, and the discipline of the will were not paralysed nor absorbed in Paul's case by his consciousness of redemption and his profound spiritual experiences.' Scripture lends no support to the idea which some forms of Augustinian theology assume, that the divine spirit is an irresistible force acting from without upon man and superseding his exertions. It acts as an immanent moral power, not compelling or crushing the will, but quickening and inspiring its efforts.

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If we inquire what constitutes the subjective or human element in the making of the new life, we find that the New Testament emphasises three main factors—Repentance, Faith, and Obedience. These are complementary, and together constitute what is commonly called 'conversion.'

1. Repentance is a turning away in sorrow and contrition from a life of sin, a breaking off from evil because a better standard has been accepted. Our Lord began His ministry with a call to repentance. The first four beatitudes set forth its elements; while the parable of the prodigal illustrates its nature.

Ethical writers distinguish between a negative and a positive aspect of repentance. On its negative side it is regarded as the emotion of sorrow excited by reflection upon sin. But sorrow, though accompanying repentance, must not be identified with it. Mere regret, either in the form of bitterness over one's folly, or chagrin on account of discovery, may be but a weak sentiment which exerts little or no influence upon a man's subsequent conduct. Even remorse following the commission of wickedness may only deepen into a paralysing despair which works death rather than repentance unto life.

(1) On its positive side repentance implies action as well as feeling, and involves a determination of will to quit the past and start on a new life. A man repents not merely when he grieves over his misdeed, but when he confesses it and seeks to make what amendment he can. This positive outlook upon the future, rather than the passive brooding over the past, is happily expressed in the New Testament term metanoia, change of mind, and is enforced in the Baptist's counsel, 'Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.'[9] The change of mind here indicated is practically equivalent to what is variously called in the New Testament 'Conversion,'[10] 'Renewal,'[11] 'Regeneration,'[12]—words suggestive of the completeness of the change.

(2) The variety of terms employed to describe conversion {172} would seem to imply that the Scriptures recognise a diversity of mode. All do not enter the kingdom of God by the same way; and the New Testament offers examples varying from the sudden conversion of a Saul to the almost imperceptible transformation of a Nathaniel and a Timothy. In modern life something of the same variety of Christian experience is manifest. While what is called 'sudden conversion' cannot reasonably be denied,[13] as little can those cases be ignored in which the truth seems to pervade the mind gradually and almost unconsciously—cases of steady spiritual growth from childhood upwards, in which the believer is unaware of any break in the continuity of his inner history, his days appearing to be 'bound each to each by natural piety.'

(3) The question arises, Which is the normal experience? The matter has been put somewhat bluntly by the late Professor James,[14] as to whether the 'twice-born' or the 'once-born' present the natural type of Christian experience. Is it true, he asks, that the experience of St. Paul, which has so long dominated Christian teaching, is really the higher or even the healthier mode of approaching religion? Does not the example of Jesus offer a simpler and more natural ideal? The moral experience of the Son of Man was not a revolution but an evolution. His own religion was not that of the twice-born, and all that He asked of His disciples was the childlike mind.[15] Paul, the man of cities, feels a kindred turbulence within himself. Jesus, the interpreter of nature, feels the steady persuasiveness of the sunshine of God, and grows from childhood in stature, wisdom, and favour with God and man. It is contended by some that the whole Pauline conception of sin is a nightmare, and rests upon ideas of God and man which are unworthy and untrue. 'As a matter of fact,' says Sir Oliver Lodge, 'the higher man of to-day is not worrying about his sins at all, still less about their punishment; his mission, if he is good for anything, is to be up and doing.'[16] {173} This amounts to a claim for the superiority of the first of the two types of religious consciousness, the type which James describes as 'sky-blue souls whose affinities are with flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies than with dark human passions; . . . in whom religious gladness, being in possession from the outset, needs no deliverance from any antecedent burden.'[17] The second type is marked by a consciousness, similar to St. Paul's, of the divided self. It starts from radical pessimism. It only attains to religious peace through great tribulation. It is the religion of the 'sick soul' as contrasted with that of 'healthy-mindedness.' But, morbid as it may appear, to be disturbed by past sin, it is really the 'twice-born' who have sounded the depths of the human heart, and have been the greatest religious leaders. And so far from the sense of the need of repentance being the sign of a diseased mind, the decreasing consciousness of sin in our day may only prove the shallowness of the modern mind. What men need of religion is power. And there is a danger of people to-day losing a sense of the dynamic force of the older Gospel.[18]

But whether Paul's case is abnormal or the reverse, it is surely a false inference that, because Christ grew up without the need of conversion, His life affords in this respect a pattern to sinful men. It is just His perfect union with God which differentiates Him entirely from ordinary men; and that which may be necessary for sinful creatures is unthinkable in His case. What He was we are to become. But before we can follow Him, there is for us, because of sin, a preliminary step—a breaking with our evil past. And, in all His teaching our Lord clearly recognises this. His first call is a call to repentance. It is indeed the childlike mind He requires; but He significantly says that 'except ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven.'[19]

The decision of will demanded of Jesus, while it may not {174} necessarily involve a catastrophe of life or convulsion of nature, must be none the less a deliberate and decisive turning from evil to good. By what road a man must travel before he enters the kingdom, through what convulsion of spirit be must pass, so frequently dwelt upon by St. Paul and illustrated by his own life, Christ does not say. In the Fourth Gospel there is one reported saying describing a process of spiritual agony, like that of physical child-birth, indicative that the change must be radical, and that at some point of experience the great decision must be made, a decision which is likely to involve deep travail of soul.

There are many ways in which a man may become a Christian. Some men have to undergo, like Paul, fierce inward conflict. Others glide quietly, almost imperceptibly, into richer and ampler regions of life. But when or how the transition is made, whether the renewal be sudden or gradual, it is the same victory in all cases that must be won, the victory of the spirit over the flesh, the 'putting off of the old man' and the 'putting on of the new.' Life cannot be always a compromise. Sooner or later it must become an alternative. He who has seen the higher self can be no longer content with the lower. The acts of contrition, confession, and decision—essential and successive steps in repentance—are the immediate effects of the vision of Christ. Though repentance is indeed a human activity, here, as always, the earlier impulse comes from the divine side. He who truly repents is already in the grip of Christ. 'We love Him because He first loved us.'

2. Faith.—If repentance looks back and forsakes the old, faith looks forward and accepts the new. Even in repentance there is already an element of faith, for a man cannot turn away from his evil past without having some sense of contrast between the actual and the possible, some vision of the better life which he feels to be desirable.

(1) While there is no more characteristic word in the New Testament than faith, there is none which is used in a greater variety of senses, or whose import it is more difficult to determine. It must not be forgotten at the outset {175} that though it is usually regarded as a theological term, it is a purely human act, and represents an element in ordinary life without which the world could not hold together for a single day. We constantly live by faith, and in our common intercourse with our fellows we daily exercise this function. We have an irresistible conviction that we live in a rational world in which effect answers to cause. Faith, it has been said, is the capital of all reasoning. Break down this principle, and logic itself would be bankrupt. Those who have denied the intelligibility of the universe have not been able to dispense with the very organ by which their argument is conducted. Hence faith in its religious sense is of the same kind as faith in common life. It is distinguishable only by its special object and its moral intensity.

(2) The habitual relationship between Christ and His disciples was one of mutual confidence. While Jesus evidently trusts them, they regard Him as their Master on whose word they wholly rely. Ever invested with a deep mystery and awe, He is always for His disciples the embodiment of all that is highest and holiest, the supreme object of reverence, the ultimate source of authority. Peter but expresses the mind of the company when he says, 'To whom can we go but unto Thee, Thou hast the words of eternal life.' Nor was it only the disciples who manifested this personal trust. Many others, the Syrophenician woman, the Roman Centurion, Zacchaeus, Bartimaeus, also evinced it. It was, indeed, to this element in the human heart that Jesus invariably appealed; and while He was quick to detect its presence, He was equally sensitive to its absence. Even among the twelve, when, in the face of some new emergency, there was evidence of mistrust, He exclaimed, 'O ye of little faith.' And when, beyond His own immediate circle, He met with suspicion and unbelief, it caused Him surprise and pain.[20]

From these and other incidents it is obvious that faith for Jesus had a variety of meanings and degrees.

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(a) Sometimes it meant simply trust in divine providence; as when He bids His disciples take no thought for their lives, because He who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies cares for them. (b) It meant again belief in His own divine power; as when He assures the recipients of His healing virtue that their faith hath made them whole. (c) It is regarded by Jesus as a condition of forgiveness and salvation. Thus to the woman who had sinned He said, 'Thy faith hath saved thee,' and to the man who was sick of the palsy, 'Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.'[21]

The essential and vital mark in all Christ's references is the personal appropriation of the good which He Himself had brought to man. In His various modes of activity—in His discourses, His works of healing and forgiveness—it is not too much to say that Jesus regarded Himself as the embodiment of God's message to the world; and to welcome His word with confidence and joy, and unhesitatingly act upon it, was faith. Hence it did not mean merely the mental acceptance of some abstract truth, but, before all else, personal and intimate devotion to Himself. It seems the more necessary to emphasise this point since Harnack has affirmed 'that, while Christ was the special object of faith for Paul and the other apostles, He did not enter as an element into His own preaching, and did not solicit faith towards Himself.'[22] It is indeed true that Jesus frequently associated Himself with His Father, whose immediate representative He claims to be. But no one can doubt that He also asserts authority and power on His own account, and solicits faith on His own behalf. Nor does He take pains, even when challenged, to explain that He was but the agent of another. On the contrary, as we have seen, He acts in His own right, and pronounces the blessings of healing and forgiveness in His own name. Even when the word 'Faith' is not mentioned the whole attitude and spirit of Jesus impels us to the same conclusion. There was an air of independence and authority {177} about Him which filled His disciples and others, not merely with confidence, but with wonder and awe. His repeated word is, 'I say unto you.' And there is a class of sayings which clearly indicate the supreme significance which He attached to His own personality as an object of faith. Foremost among these is the great invitation, 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.'

(3) If we turn to the epistles, and especially to the Pauline, we are struck by the apparently changed meaning of faith. It has become more complex and technical. It is no longer simply the receptive relation of the soul towards Christ; it is also a justifying principle. Faith not only unites the believer to Christ, it also translates him into a new sphere and creates for him a new environment. The past is cancelled. All things have become new. The man of faith has passed out of the dominion of law into the kingdom of Grace.

The Pauline doctrine of Justification by Faith has received in the history of the Church a twofold interpretation. On the one hand, it has been maintained that the sole significance of faith is that it gives to the believer power, by God's supernatural aid, to realise a goodness of which he is naturally incapable. On the other hand, it is held that the peculiarity of faith is that, though he himself is a sinner deserving condemnation, it affords to the believer an assurance of the favour with which a loving Father regards him, not on account of his own attainments, but in virtue of the perfect obedience of the Son of God with whom each is united by faith. The former is the more distinctively Roman view; the latter that of the Reformed Church. While the Catholic form of the doctrine gives to 'works' a place not less important than faith in justification, the Protestant exalts 'faith' to the position of priority as more in harmony with the mystery of the atoning sacrifice of Christ as expounded by St. Paul. Faith justifies, because it is for the Christian the vision of an ideal. What we admire in another is already implicitly within us. We {178} already possess the righteousness we believe in. The moral beauty of Christ is ours inasmuch as we are linked to Him by faith, and have accepted as our true self all that He is and has achieved. Hence faith is not merely the sight of the ideal in Christ. It is the energy of the soul as well, by which the believer strives to realise that which he admires. According to the teaching of Scripture faith has thus a threefold value. It is a receptive attitude, a justifying principle, and an energising power. It is that by which the believer accepts and appropriates the gift of Life offered by God in Christ.

3. Obedience.—Faith contains the power of a new obedience. But faith worketh by love. The soul's surrender to Christ is the crowning phase of man's response. The obedience of love is the natural sequel of repentance and faith, the completing act of consecration. As God gives Himself in Christ to man, so man yields in Christ to God all he is and all he has.

Without enlarging upon the nature of this final act of self-surrender, three points of ethical value ought not to be overlooked.

(1) Obedience is an activity of the soul by which the believer appropriates the life of God. Life is not merely a gift, it is a task, an achievement. We are not simply passive recipients of the Good, but free and determinative agents who react upon what is given, taking it up into our life and working it into the texture of our character. The obedience of love is the practical side of faith. While God imparts the energy of the Spirit, we apply it and by strenuous endeavour and unceasing effort mould our souls and make our world.

(2) It is a consecration of the whole personality. All the powers of man are engaged in soul-making. Religion is not a detached region of experience, a province separate from the incidents and occupations of ordinary existence. Obedience must cover the whole of life, and demands the exercise and devotion of every gift. Not only is every thought to be brought into subjection to the mind of {179} Christ, but every passion and desire, every activity and power of body and mind are to be consecrated to God and transformed into instruments of service. 'Our wills are ours to make them thine.' But the will is not a separate faculty; it is the whole man. And the obedience of the will is nothing less than the response of our entire manhood to the will of God.

(3) Finally, obedience is a growing power of assimilation to Christ. We grow in the Christian life according to the measure of our faith and the exercise of our love. The spiritual world is potentially ours at the beginning of the Christian life, but it has to be worked out in daily experience. Like every other form of existence spiritual life is a growth which only attains to strength and fruition through continual conflict and achievement. The soul is not a finished product. In patience it is to be acquired.[23] By trial and temptation, by toil and expenditure, through all the hardships and hazards of daily life its value is determined and its destiny shaped. And according to the measure in which we use these experiences, and transmute them by obedience to the will of God into means of good, do we grow in Christian character and approximate to the full stature of the perfect Man.

To this self-determining activity Eucken has given the name of 'Activism.' 'The basis of a true life,' says this writer, 'must be continually won anew.'[24] Activism acquires ethical character inasmuch as it involves the taking up of the spiritual world into our own volition and being. Only by this ceaseless endeavour do we advance to fresh attainments of the moral life, and are enabled to assimilate the divine as revealed to us in Christ. Nor is it merely the individual self that is thus enriched and developed by obedience to the will of God. By personal fidelity to the highest we are aiding the moral development of mankind, and are furthering the advancement of all that is good and true in the world. Not only are we making {180} our own character, but we are helping to build up the kingdom of God upon the earth.

Repentance, Faith, and Obedience are thus the human factors of the new life. They are the moral counterparts of Grace. God gives and man appropriates. By repentance we turn from sin and self to the true home of our soul in the Fatherhood of God. By faith we behold in Christ the vision of the ideal self. By obedience and the daily surrender of ourselves to the divine will we transform the vision into the reality. They are all manifestations of love, the responsive notes of the human heart to the appeal of divine love.

[1] Irenaeus, Contra Haereses, III. xviii. 1.

[2] Matt. xx. 28; John xi. 51; Matt. xxvi. 28; Mark xiv. 8, 9.

[3] The Analogy, part II. chap. v.

[4] 2 Cor. v. 14 f.; Rom. vi.; Ephes. iii. 16, 17, v. 8.

[5] Gal. ii. 20.

[6] Meyers, Saint Paul.

[7] See Blewett, The Christian View of the World, pp. 88 ff., where this subject is suggestively treated.

[8] Christ and Paul.

[9] Matt. iii. 8; Luke iii. 8.

[10] Acts xxvi. 20.

[11] Rom. xii. 12; Titus iii. 5.

[12] 2 Cor. v. 17; Gal. vi. 15.

[13] See Begbie, Broken Earthenware.

[14] Varieties of Relig. Experience.

[15] Mark x. 15.

[16] Man and the Universe, p. 220.

[17] Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 80.

[18] Cf. Foundations: a Statement of Religious Belief by seven Oxford men, Essay VI., pp. 274 f.

[19] Matt. xviii. 3.

[20] Matt. xiii. 58; Mark vi. 5.

[21] Cf. Stalker, The Ethic of Jesus, p. 179.

[22] Das Wesen des Christenthums, p. 91, quoted by Stalker, idem, p. 176.

[23] Luke xxi. 19.

[24] Life's Basis and life's Ideal, p. 255.

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SECTION D

CONDUCT

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CHAPTER XI

VIRTUES AND VIRTUE

So far we have gained some conception of the Christian ideal as the highest moral good, and have learned also how the Christian character is brought into being. We now enter upon a new section—the last stage of our inquiry—and have to consider the 'new man'—his virtues, duties, and relationships.

The business lying immediately before us in this chapter is to consider the accepted standards in which the Christian good is exhibited—the virtues recognised by the Christian consciousness.

What, then, are the particular forms or manifestations of character which result from the Christian interpretation of life? When we think of man as living in relation to his fellows, and engaging in the common activities of the world, what are the special traits of character which distinguish the Christian? These questions suggest one of the most important, and at the same time one of the most difficult, tasks of Christian Ethics—the classification of the virtues. The difficulty arises in the first instance from the ambiguity attaching to the term 'virtue.' It is often loosely used to signify a meritorious act—as in the phrase, 'making a virtue of a necessity.' It is frequently employed generally for a moral quality or excellency of character, and in this respect is contrasted with vice. Finally, virtues are sometimes identified with duties. Thus we speak of the virtue of veracity. But obviously we may also refer to the duty of veracity. The word aretê; signifies 'force,' and was originally used as a property of bodies, plants, or animals. {184} At first it had no ethical import. In Attic usage it came to signify aptness or fitness of manhood for public life. And this signification has shaped the future meaning of its Latin equivalent—virtus (from vis, strength, and not from vir, a man).

Plato gave to the term a certain ethical value in connection with his moral view of the social life, so that Ethics came to be designated the doctrine of virtues. In general, however, both by the Greek and Roman moralists, and particularly the Stoics, the word virtus retained something of the sense of force or capacity—a quality prized in the citizen. The English word is a direct transcript of the Latin. The German noun, Tugend (from taugen, to fit) means capability, and is related to worth, honour, manliness. The word aretê does not frequently occur in the New Testament.[1] In the few passages in which it appears it is associated with praiseworthiness. In one passage[2] it has a more distinctly ethical signification—'add to your faith virtue'—where the idea is that of practical worth or manhood.

Virtue may be defined as the acquired power or capacity for moral action. From the Christian point of view virtue is the complement, or rather the outcome, of grace. Hence virtues are graces. In the Christian sense a man is not virtuous when he has first appropriated by faith the new principle of life. He has within him, indeed, the promise and potency of all forms of goodness, but not until he has consciously brought his personal impulses and faculties into the service of Christ can he be called truly virtuous. Hence the Christian character is only progressively realised. On the divine side virtue is a gift. On the human side it is an activity. Our Lord's figure of the vine and the branches represents the relation in which Christian character stands to Christ. In like manner St. Paul regards the manifestations of the Christian life as the fruit of the Spirit—the inevitable and natural outgrowth of the divine seed of life implanted in the heart. Hence arises the importance of {185} cultivating the inner life of the spirit which is the root of all moral excellency. On the other hand it must be remembered that Christian morality is not of a different sort from natural morality, and the Christian virtues are not merely supernatural qualities added on, but simply human virtues coloured and transfigured by grace and raised to a higher value. The power to act morally, the capacity to bring all our faculties into the service of the spiritual life, is the ground of Christian virtue just as it is of every natural excellence. From this it follows that the distinction sometimes made between natural goodness and Christian goodness is unsound. A virtue is not a superlative act of merit, implying an excess of excellence beyond the requirements of duty. From the Christian standpoint there are no works of supererogation, and there is no room in the Christian life for excess or margin. As every duty is a bounden duty, so every possible excellence is demanded of the Christian. Virtues prescribe duties; ideals become laws; and the measure is, 'Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.' The Stoic maxim, 'Nothing in excess,' is inadequate in reference to moral excellence, and Aristotle's doctrine of the 'Mean' can hardly be applied without considerable distortion of facts. The only virtue which with truth can be described as a form of moderation is Temperance. It has been objected that by his doctrine of the 'Mean' Aristotle 'obliterates the awful and absolute difference between right and wrong.' If we substitute, as Kant suggested, 'law' for 'mean,' some of the ambiguity is obviated. Still, after all extenuation is made it may be questioned whether any term implying quantity is a fit expression for a moral attribute.[3]

At the same time the virtues must not be regarded as mere abstractions. Moral qualities cannot be isolated from the circumstances in which they are exercised. Virtue is character in touch with life, and it is only in contact with actual events that its quality can be determined. Actions are not simply good or bad in themselves. They must {186} always be valued both by their inner motives and intended ends. Courage or veracity, for example, may be exercised from different causes and for the most various ends, and occasionally even for those of an immoral nature.[4]

For these and similar reasons some modern ethical writers have regarded the classification of the virtues as unsatisfactory, involving arbitrary and illogical distinctions in value; and some have even discarded the use of the word 'virtue' altogether, and substituted the word 'character' as the subject of ethical study. But inasmuch as character must manifest itself in certain forms, and approximate at least to certain norms or ideals of conduct, it may not be altogether superfluous to consider in their relation and unity those moral qualities (whether we call them virtues, graces, or norms of excellence) which the Christian aims at reproducing in his life.

We shall consider therefore, first, the natural elements of virtue as they have been disclosed to us by classical teachers. Next, we shall compare these with the Christian conception of life, showing how Christianity has given to them a new meaning and value. And finally, we shall endeavour to reveal the unifying principle of the virtues by showing that when transformed by the Christian spirit they are the expressions or implicates of a single spiritual disposition or totality of character.