'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.
{171}
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]