Duties to gods are in the first place based on prudential considerations. Supernatural beings, even when on the whole of a benevolent disposition, are no less resentful than men, and, owing to their superhuman power, much more dangerous. On the other hand, they may also bestow wonderful benefits upon those who please them. The general rule that prudence readily assumes a moral value holds particularly true of religious matters, where great individual interests are at stake. Waterland says in his Sermon on Self-love:—“The wisest course for any man to take is to secure an interest in the life to come…. He may love himself, in this instance, as highly and as tenderly as he pleases. There can be no excess of fondness, or self-indulgence, in respect of eternal happiness. This is loving himself in the best manner, and to the best purposes. All virtue and piety are thus resolvable into a principle of self-love…. It is with reference to ourselves, and for our own sakes, that we love even God himself.”[127]
[127] Waterland, ‘On Self-Love,’ in The English Preacher, i. 101 sq. Cf. Paley’s definition of virtue in his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, i. 7 (Complete Works, ii. 38; supra, [i. 300]).
At the same time it may be not only in people’s own interests, but in the interests of their fellow men as well, for them to be on friendly terms with supernatural beings. These beings often visit the iniquity of fathers or forefathers upon children or descendants, or punish the community for the sins of one of its members;[128] and, on the other hand, they reward the whole family or group for the virtues of a single individual.[129] So also, when the members of a community join in common acts of worship, each worshipper promotes not only his own welfare, but the welfare of his people. In early religion it is of the utmost importance for the tribe or nation that the established cult should be strictly observed. This is a fact which cannot be too much emphasised when we have to explain how conduct which is pleasing to a god has come to be regarded as a moral duty; for, if the latest stages of religious development be excepted, the relations between men and their gods are communal rather than individual in character. Ahura Mazda said, “If men sacrifice unto Verethraghna, made by Ahura, if the due sacrifice and prayer is offered unto him just as it ought to be performed in the perfection of holiness, never will a hostile horde enter the Aryan countries, nor any plague, nor leprosy, nor venomous plants, nor the chariot of a foe, nor the uplifted spear of a foe!”[130] Thus the duties to gods are at the same time social duties of the first order, owing to the intensely social character of religious relationships.
[128] Supra, [i. 48 sqq.]
[129] Supra, [i. 96 sqq.]
[130] Yasts, xiv. 48.
Another circumstance which has contributed to the moral condemnation of offences against gods is that people are anxious to punish such offences in order to prevent the divine wrath from turning against themselves;[131] for punishment, as we have seen, easily leads to moral disapproval. But although prudential considerations of some kind or other be the chief cause of the obligatory character attached to men’s conduct towards their gods, they are not the only cause. We must also remember that gods are regarded with genuine reverence by their worshippers; and where this is the case offences against religion naturally excite sympathetic resentment in the latter, whilst great piety calls forth sympathetic approval and is praised as a virtue.
I have here spoken of duties which men consider they owe to their gods, not of duties to supernatural beings in general. This distinction, though not always easy to follow in detail, is yet of vital importance. People may no doubt be afraid to offend and even anxious to please other spirits besides their gods, but religious duties chiefly arise where there are established relationships between men and supernatural beings; indeed, it may even be a duty to refrain from worshipping or actually to persecute other spirits, as is the case in monotheistic religions. Men depend for their welfare on their gods more than on any other members of the spiritual world. They select as their gods those supernatural beings from whom they think they have most to fear or most to hope. Hence it is generally in the relations to them only that those factors, prudential and reverential, are to be found which lead to the establishment of religious duties.