V. CONSEQUENT LARGER SYMPATHY WITH MEN, FAITH IN MEN,
AND HOPE FOR MEN
This whole conviction of the social consciousness, of the like-mindedness of men, leads naturally to increased sympathy with men, and this in turn to still better discernment of moral and spiritual realities. And this is of prime importance for the theologian; for sympathetic insight, it must never be forgotten, is the true route to spiritual verities. So far as our insight into actual human life becomes truer, so far our theology becomes clearer and more reasonable.
This conviction leads also to increased belief in men, and consequently to increased belief in the effectiveness of the higher appeals. The temptation to disbelief in man was one of the underlying temptations of Christ as he looked forward to his work; but he turned resolutely from it, and refused to build his kingdom on any lower appeal that implied a lack of faith in men. Nothing seems to me more wonderful in Christ than his marvelous faith in man; for, though he has the deepest sense of the sin of men, there is not the slightest trace of cynicism in his thought or life.
This recognition of likeness under diversity, too, leads to increased hope for men, here and hereafter. In James' words: "It absolutely forbids us to be forward in pronouncing on the meaninglessness of forms of existence other than our own.... Neither the whole of truth nor the whole of good is revealed to any single observer.... No one has insight into all the ideals. No one should presume to judge them off-hand."[70]
This thought helps us to greater hope for men, because, indeed, it helps us to the discernment of genuine ideals under very different forms of life, of the universal sense of duty and some loyalty to it, though there is great diversity of judgment as to what is duty.[71] But, it is here to be noted, also, that the thought of the like-mindedness of men brings greater hope, because it helps to the discernment of likeness, even under difference in important terms used. We are coming to see that there is sometimes, at least, a really strong religious faith where men do not acknowledge the term. Thus, Bradley says: "All of us, I presume, more or less, are led beyond the region of ordinary facts. Some in one way, and some in others, we seem to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world. In various manners we find something higher, which supports and humbles, both chastens and transports us. And," as a philosopher he adds, "with certain persons, the intellectual effort to understand the universe is a principal way of thus experiencing the Deity."[72]
Even where the term Deity would be entirely abjured, we have seen with Paulsen,[73] that a real faith essentially religious in character may be clearly manifest. We are even coming to see that men may seem to themselves to be contending upon opposite sides of so fundamental a question as that of the personality of God, and yet be near together as to their own ultimate faith and attitude, and possibly even as to their real philosophical views of God; but the same term has come to have such different connotations for the men, from their different education and experience, that they simply cannot use it with the same meaning.
I have not the slightest desire to reduce the concrete, ethical, definitely personal religion of Jesus to the ambiguities of philosophical dreamers; the world is going to become more and more consciously and avowedly Christian. But I do not, on the other hand, as a Christian theologian, wish to shut my eyes to great essential likenesses in fundamental faiths and ideals and aspirations, because they are clothed in different garb. The life and teaching of Jesus have worked and are working in the consciousness of men far beyond the limits our feeble faith is inclined to prescribe. There is doubtless much "unconscious Christianity," much "unconscious following of Christ."[74] And we are only following Christ's own counsel, when we refuse to forbid the man who is working a good work in his name, though he follows not with us.[75] Certainly, if we accept the witness of a man's life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is right, we ought to accept the witness of his life against the witness of his lips when the witness of his lips is wrong.
With reference to all the preceding inferences from the deepening sense of the like-mindedness of men, it is particularly worthy of note, that this conviction of the essential likeness of men has come into existence side by side with the growing conviction of the moral unripeness of many men, and in spite of that conviction. The careful study of different social classes is forcing upon both the scientific sociologist and the practical social worker, the sense of the ethical immaturity of men. But deeper than this recognition of moral unripeness, deeper than the vision of the sad defectiveness of moral and spiritual ideals and standards, deeper than the clear sense of the immense differences among men as to what is duty, deeper than the differences in even the most important terms used, lies this great conviction of likeness—that all men are moral and spiritual beings, made for relation to one another and to God; that they have ideals that have a wide outlook implicit in them, and have some loyalty to these ideals; that they do have a sense of obligation; that the moral and spiritual life is a reality, a great universal human fact.
VI. JUDGMENT ACCORDING TO LIGHT, AND THE MORAL REALITY
OF THE FUTURE LIFE
It is no accident, now, that accompanying this double social conviction, there has come into theology a new insistence upon the principle of judgment of a man according to his light, and consequently also, what Professor Clarke calls "a tendency toward the recognition of greater reality and freedom in the other life, and thus toward the possibility of moral change."[76] Our conception of the future life was certain to be modified by the social consciousness; and it may be doubted if any influence of the social consciousness upon theology can be more clearly traced historically than this. The motives that have been working in our minds here include, on the one hand, a wholesome sense of the imperfection of even the best human lives; a glad discernment, on the other hand, of the presence of genuine ideals in lives where we had thought there were none; the certainty that, as Dr. Clarke says, "for at least one-third of mankind the entire life of conscious and developed personality is lived in the other world;"[77] an experienced unwillingness to say, where we cannot see, the precise point at which the very diverse lives of men under very diverse conditions come to full moral maturity; and the conviction that a life that is to be moral at all must be moral everywhere and through all time, and that where even we can see a little, God can see much more. All these motives, now, make us refuse, with Christ, to answer the question, "Are there few that be saved?" And both with increasing hope, and with that increasing sense of the seriousness and significance of life which so characterizes the social consciousness, to urge: "Strive to enter in." The growing sense of the likeness of men does affect our thought of the future life. The best men, under the clearest light, have only begun; for the best, there is still much need of growth. Who has not begun at all? For whom is there no growth?