Rudolph Eucken : a philosophy of life

by Abel J. Jones

English philosophers have dealt at length with the question of the possibility of reconciling the independence of personality and the existence of an Absolute. From Eucken's point of view the difficulty is not so serious. When he speaks of personality he does not mean the mere subjective individual in all his selfishness. Eucken has no sympathy with the emphasis that is often placed on the individual in the low subjective sense, and is averse from the glorification of the individual of which some writers are fond. Indeed, he would prefer a naturalistic explanation of man rather than one framed as a result of man's individualistic egoism. The former explanation admits that man is entirely a thing of nature; the latter, from a selfish and proud standpoint, claims for man a place in a higher world. There is nothing that is worthy and high in the low desires of Mr. Smith—the mere subjective Mr. Smith. But if through the mind and body of Mr. Smith the Absolute Spirit is realising itself in personality—then there is something of eternal worth—there is spiritual personality. There will be opposition between the sordidness of the mere individual will and the divine will, but that is because the spiritual life has not been gained. When the highest state of spiritual personality has been reached, then man is an expression—a personal realisation of the Absolute, is in entire accord with the absolute, indeed becomes himself divine.

This does not rob the term personality of its meaning, for each personality does, in some way, after all, exist for itself. Each individual consciousness has a sanctity of its own. But the being-for-self develops more and more by coming into direct contact with the Universal Spiritual Life.

Here, then, we arrive at something that appears to be a paradox. We have the phenomenon of a being that is free and existing for itself, yet in some way dependent upon an absolute spiritual life. We have, too, the phenomenon of a human being becoming divine. How is it really possible that self-activity can arise out of dependence? Eucken does not attempt to explain, but contends that an explanation cannot be arrived at through reasoning. We are forced to the conclusion, we realise through our life and action that this is the real state of affairs, and in this case the reality proves the possibility. "This primal phenomenon," he says, "overflows all explanation. It has, as the fundamental condition of all spiritual life, a universal axiomatic character." Again he says, "The wonder of wonders is the human made divine, through God's superior power." "The problem surpasses the capacity of the human reason." For taking up this position, Eucken is sharply criticised by some writers.

When we approach the problem of the nature of the Absolute in itself, the main difficulty that arises is whether God is a personal being. God, says Eucken, is "an Absolute Spiritual Life in all its grandeur, above all the limitations of man and the world of experience—a Spiritual Life that has attained to a complete subsistence in itself, and at the same time to an encompassing of all reality." The divine is for Eucken the ultimate spirituality that inspires the work of all spiritual personalities. When in our life of fight and action we need inspiration, we find "in the very depths of our own nature a reawakening, which is not a mere product of our activity, but a salvation straight from God." God, then, is the ultimate spirituality which inspires the struggling personality, and gives to it a sense of unity and confidence. Eucken does not admit that God is a personality in the sense that we are, and deprecates all anthropomorphic conceptions of God as a personal being. Indeed, to avoid the tendency to such conceptions he would prefer the term "Godhead" to "God." Further considerations of the nature of God can only lead to intellectual speculations. For an activistic philosophy, such as Eucken's philosophy is, it would seem sufficient for life and action to know that all attempts at the ideal in life, originate in, and are inspired by, the Absolute Spiritual Life, that is by God.

We cannot discuss fully the relation of human and divine without, too, dealing with the ever urgent problem of religion. This is a problem in which Eucken is deeply interested, and concerning which he has written one of his greatest works—The Truth of Religion—a work that has been described as one of the greatest apologies for religion ever written.

What is religion? Most people perhaps would apply the term to a system of belief concerning the Eternal, usually resting upon a historical or traditional basis. Others would include in the term the reverence felt for the Absolute by the contemplative mind, even though that mind did not believe in any of the traditional systems. Some would emphasise the fact that religion should concern itself with the establishment of a relationship between the human and the Divine.

But Eucken does not find religion to consist in belief, nor in a mere attitude towards the mysteries of an overworld. In keeping with the activistic tone of his whole philosophy he finds religion to be rooted in life, and would define religion as an action by which the human being appropriates the spiritual life.

The first great concern of religion must be the conservation—not of man, as mere man, but of the spiritual life in the human being, and it means "a mighty concentration of the spiritual life in man." The essential basis that makes religion possible is the presence of a Divine life in man—"it unfolds itself through the seizure of this life as one's own nature." Religion must be a form of activity, which brings about the concentration of the spiritual life in the human soul, and sets forth this spiritual life as a shield against unworthy elements that attempt to enter and to govern man.

The essential characteristic of religion must be the demand for a new world. "Religion is not a communication of overworld secrets, but the inauguration of an overworld life." Religion must depend upon the contradiction and opposition that exists in human life, and upon the clear recognition of the distinction between the "high" and the "low" in life. It must point to a means of attaining freedom and redemption from the old world of sin and sense, and to the possibility of being elevated into a new and higher world. It must, too, fight against the extremes of optimism and pessimism, for while it will acknowledge the presence of wrong, it will call attention to the possibility of deliverance. It must bring about a change of life, without denying the dark side of life; it must show "the Divine in the things nearest at hand, without idealising falsely the ordinary situation of life."

The great practical effect of religion, then, must be to create a demand for a new and higher world in opposition to the world of nature. For this new life religion must provide an ultimate standard. "Religion must at all times assert its right to prove and to winnow, for it is religion—the power which draws upon the deepest source of life—which takes to itself the whole of man, and offers a fixed standard for all his undertakings." Religion must provide a standard for the whole of life, for it places all human life "under the eternity." It is not the function of religion to set up a special province over against the other aspects of his life—it must transform life in its entirety, and affect all the subsidiary aspects.