Differences noticeable between the religious and scientific interpretations of certain phenomena are not necessarily fundamentally hostile the one to the other, since each represents an opposing point of view rather than a contradictory likeness of fact. Any system of reflective thought, registered as opinion and propagated as substantial truth, may appear in opposition to any other established line of thought; but neither should be on this account judged as wholly right or wholly wrong, since each may be a perfectly correct impression of the thing seen, if the reflective machinery available has been properly employed. For whether artistic perception be utilised as an aid to the desire so to interpret Nature as to provide an endorsement of psychical apprehension, or whether it be directed towards the production of evidence for the verification of intellectual conjecture, the alternative result of a religious or a scientific interpretation of life is equally dependent upon focus for its representation in kind.
Under certain unlike conditions of light and distance, two artists engaged in the representation of the same object produce totally different impressions of the thing seen. Difference of focus in the actual outward vision; difference of personality, whereby difference in the mental powers of registration, reconstruction and expression becomes apparent, are together productive of difference in representation. A discerning critic does not, however, condemn either picture as worthless or incorrect because the one does not resemble the other. He knows that a just opinion of their respective values rests upon his ability to gauge that relative difference of focus which is responsible for their dissimilarity. The worth of his criticism depends upon his capacity so to focus his own point of view as to embrace and reconcile the differences of aspect in the representations submitted to his judgment. Given this ability, he is aware that his perception of the reconciled differences has enlarged his own appreciation of what he is called upon to judge. His criticism becomes his own enlightenment. Thus it appears that true critical appreciation is based upon the focussing of diverging points of view into converging actuality; and only when inquiry is attended with such impartial discernment can elucidation ensue.
The question of suffering, particularly of vicarious suffering, is one which, from the intimate nature of its bearing on the spiritual as well as on the physical aspect of human consciousness, gives rise to certain apparent irreconcilable differences between the religious and the scientific interpretation of its place and meaning in the scheme of life. On the one hand we have the point of view derived from that type of mind which cannot dissociate suffering from sin, regarding each as a concomitant consequence of a derangement of the divine and originally perfect order of Creation by reason of the intervention of Evil in opposition to God's Will for Good. Such is the creed of pessimistic suffering—a practical denial of the progressive action of the Spirit of Love. On the other hand, there is the point of view derived from that type of mind which believes the susceptibility of organisms to contrasting sensations to be a necessary factor in spiritual as well as in physical evolution. Such is the creed of optimistic suffering—the affirmation of the inherence of the divine Spirit of Life in all creatures, whereby pain and evil are shown to be as truly ordained by God as those opposing elements of consciousness known to us as joy and good, to the end that for evil so much good more, for sorrow so much joy more, may be evolved through the transmuting and progressive purpose of His Will.
Here, then, are two aspects of the phenomenon of suffering—two pictures of life drawn from two points of view—the one apparently so irreconcilable with the other as to make it difficult to realise that it is indeed one and the same objective which is subjected to critical inquiry, i.e. the compatibility of sin and suffering in a world created and controlled by a God of Love. But we are not justified in condemning, on the score of dissimilarity of conception and treatment, either representation as incorrect or worthless. The point of focus is responsible for their seeming contradiction. May not, therefore, some adjustment of our powers of critical discernment give us a point of focus which shall embrace both aspects, reconcile their seeming contradictions and differences, and enable us to draw one comprehensive conclusion from them both, to the enlightenment of our intellectual and spiritual consciousness? Our analytical appreciation is directed towards a fair consideration of different aspects of a natural phenomenon. Is it not possible to attain a vantage-ground above the divergence of aspects high enough to allow us to behold the spiritual and physical signification of suffering as one harmonious accompaniment of spiritual and physical evolution, in accord with the divine directing Will of Love?
As, within the physical universe, sound-waves, once set in motion, must circulate for ever, ripple on ripple, in widening vistas of echoing reproduction, unless broken in their course by contact with some barrier capable of arresting and absorbing the progress of vibration; so, in spiritual consciousness, the influences for good and evil which emanate from all effort, whether individual or collective, volitionary or involuntary, must circulate for ever throughout Infinity, unless checked, broken, absorbed, cancelled by centralization in some interposing and receptive agent. And so, within the Communion of Love, the saints on earth, chosen by God as worthy to co-operate in the divinely appointed regenerating purpose of life, may summarise and transmute the effects of evil into good by means of their own suffering; may so sanctify their minds and bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, that they may be found worthy to share the passion of Incarnate Love in the redemption of the world. It is the Will of God, it is the Law of Life, that we bear each other's burdens; that the just suffer for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, the pure for the impure! Not in ourselves or by ourselves alone can sins of commission and omission be expiated; not by our own unaided efforts can we arrest the consequences of action. Life is a whole, and individual thought and action touch the whole, and their effects are felt by the whole. We derive no virtue in ourselves from ourselves alone. Do we not owe our very ability to discriminate between good and evil, our standard of right and wrong, our civilization, our culture—nay, in short, the whole of our evolving realization of the Love of God—to the collective consciousness of Creation, which is a continual revelation of God? Do not we stand to-day as inheritors of wisdom accumulated by the united efforts of mankind in past times, and as guardians of this, the world's increasing consciousness of God, revealed throughout all Time, throughout all Creation? According as our forefathers struggled and attained, do we in our generation enter upon the inheritance of the earth. Thus the progressive spiritual consciousness of the world is at once our inheritance and our trust. We are debtors to the past and custodians of the future generations of our kind. Through the infinite condescension of God in employing mankind as a medium of His revelation, the privilege of realising the increasing purpose of His Will is placed within our keeping. Made in the image of God, man is endowed with the creative faculties of his Maker. The Creator wills that His creatures shall consciously share in the glory of creation, whereby through the perfecting of spiritual apprehension is revealed the Kingdom of God. Are we willing to take up the cross of sacrifice and suffer gladly with and in the passion of Incarnate Love? If we are indeed judged worthy of use in the elimination of evil by conversion through suffering of the effects of evil into elements of good, must we not rejoice in our participation with Divine Love in the revelation of the glory of God? If we are called upon to surrender ourselves, our minds and souls and bodies, as a reasonable sacrifice in the service of Love; if we are chosen by God to suffer in Love and with Love in the progressive redemption of the world from evil by the translation and transmutation of its effects in ourselves through suffering into recreated good; shall we not uplift our hearts and minds and souls in praise, prayer and thanksgiving, in that we are thus consciously brought into the Holy Communion of Love?
All creation groaneth and travaileth together, but it is not given to all forms of life to suffer consciously and willingly in co-operation with the divine government of life. Participation in the redemption and salvation of the world through Love is the privilege of those only who are born into spiritual apprehension of their essential unity with God, and who thus become one with Him in the transmuting purpose of His Will. These are they who, obeying the command of Love to resist not evil, become agents of the divine Alchemist. But the power thus to suffer willingly in the transmuting process of spiritual progress implies a dual susceptibility of physical and psychical consciousness which is the peculiar privilege of mankind. The whole organic world lies under that law of suffering which ordains that the sacrifice of individual interest shall form the collective and increasing good of life. But to humanity alone as yet has been given perception and power to share consciously in the divine government of Creation. As part of the organic world we are bound by the law of suffering, but we are not condemned to suffer in total ignorance of the purpose behind the working of the Will of God. We are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and endowed with a birthright of free-will. We are called upon to suffer gladly in Love and for Love, so that the Creator may be glorified in His creatures. We are chosen instruments of the divine Will, but we are free to accept or refuse our election into active service in the Communion of Love. Shall we give ourselves to God in willing co-operation with the divine regenerating purpose of life? Or shall we resent the sacrifice of ourselves in the forwarding of His Will? We are offered co-operation with the Spirit of Life, whereby we may become the agents of divine healing in the progressive redemption of the world, and whereby the effects of evil may be transmuted into elements of good. We are called upon to share the passion of Incarnate Love and to take up willingly the cross of sacrifice. If we disregard the divine command to suffer gladly, we reduce ourselves to the level of the unenlightened brute creation, thereby proving ourselves unworthy of our vocation to conscious and active membership of the Communion of Love, inasmuch as we stultify the divinely implanted powers of transmutation and redemption within us, and hinder the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth.
For, if men are responsible to a certain extent for their own suffering and disease of mind and body; if payment in their own persons is exacted as a just result of ignorance, or as the punishment of abuse of knowledge; yet the consequences of thought and action are not thereby entirely arrested. Life is a Whole, and the conduct of the members of the spiritual Communion of Love must affect the Whole for evil or good. By our willing acceptance of our suffering as the transmuting agent for the conversion of the effects of ignorance and of active evil into elements of recreated good; by our endeavours to add to the world's accumulating consciousness of the Love of God by means of our own rightly directed thought and action; by our readiness to suffer in ourselves the physical and psychical effects of evil, and translate them into good, may we not prove ourselves more worthy of our high vocation to the Communion of Love?