Let us make no mistake here. It is no light-hearted indifference to character, to which the genuine social consciousness leads. No age, indeed, ever saw so clearly as ours that the most essential conditions of happiness are in character, or was more certain that sin carries with it its own inevitable consequences. It is not a less, but a more, profound sense of the seriousness of the problem of moral character, that makes us hesitate to dogmatize concerning the future life.
To bring together, now, the conclusions of the chapter: The first element in the social consciousness—the deepening sense of the likeness of men—seems likely to affect theology, especially by modifying the thought of election through emphasis upon choice for service, and through the clear recognition that there are no prime favorites with God; by strengthening the conviction that the great common qualities and interests are the most valuable, and that genuine and largely common ideals may be found under very diverse forms and conditions; and thus, on the one hand, by opposing the denial of the psychical likeness of men, as applied to the problem of immortality, and, on the other hand, by bringing us to larger sympathy with men, to larger faith in men, and to larger hope for men; and, finally, by laying new emphasis upon judgment according to light, and upon the moral reality and freedom of the future life.
[57] Cf. e. g., Clarke, Outline of Christian Theology, p. 145.
[58] Mark 10:44.
[59] James, Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, p. 301.
[60] Cf. Giddings, Elements of Sociology, p. 324.
[61] Howells, A Boy's Town, p. 205.
[62] The New World, Dec., 1898, pp. 702, 703.
[63] James, Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, p. 237.
[64] Op. cit., p. 282.
[65] P. 112.
[66] Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, p. 253.
[67] McConnell, The Evolution of Immortality, pp. 75 ff.
[68] Cf. James, Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 348 ff., p. 367; Lotze, The Microcosmus, Book V, especially Vol. I, pp. 713, 714.
[69] The Candle of the Lord, and Other Sermons, p. 154.
[70] Talks on Psychology and Life's Ideals, pp. 263, 265.
[71] Cf. above, p. 121 ff.
[72] Bradley, Appearance and Reality, pp. 5, 6.
[73] Cf. above, pp. 46, 47.
[74] Cf. Fremantle, The World as the Subject of Redemption, pp. 250 ff, 320 ff; Lyman Abbott, The Outlook, Dec. 24, 1898.
[75] Mark 9:38, 39; Cf. Matt. 10:40-42.
[76] An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 475.
[77] Op. cit., p. 469.
CHAPTER XI
THE INFLUENCE OF THE DEEPENING SENSE OF THE MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF MEN UPON THEOLOGY
From this first element of the social consciousness, we turn now to the second, and ask, How does the deepening sense of the mutual influence of men affect theology?
I. THE REAL UNITY OF THE RACE
1. First, then, taken with the sense of the likeness of men, it can hardly be doubted that sociology's strong feeling of the mutual influence of men deepens for theology the thought of the real, not the mechanical, unity of the race. The theologian believes, more than he did, in a race whose unity is preëminently moral, rather than physical or mystical. The truly scientific position for the theologian seems to be, to make no mysterious assumptions, where well-known causes are sufficient to account for the facts; and those causes which the social consciousness clearly sees to be at work seem, in all probability, adequate to account for the facts in discussion so far as those facts are finite at all.[78] The theologian knows, then, a true moral universe, with a unity which is that of the close personal, mutual relations of like-minded spiritual beings.
The natural goal of such a race, the only one in which they can truly find themselves, is the kingdom of God. This conception of Christ is first thoroughly at home with us, when we see that the true unity of the race is that of personal moral relation. So far as men turn from that goal, this same racial unity of the inevitable and most intimate personal relations converts them into something approaching Ritschl's conception of an opposing "kingdom of sin."
Are we prepared to be thoroughly loyal to just this conception of the unity of the race throughout our theological thinking; and so to give up cherished ideas of "common," "transmitted," "inherited," or "racial" sin or righteousness, of "mystical solidarity," and racial ideal representation, etc.? It probably may be said with truth that few, if any, theological systems have been thus loyal. Indeed, under what seems a mistaken application of the social consciousness, and particularly under the misleading influence of the analogy of the organism, men have believed themselves attaining a deeper theological view, when they have, in fact, turned away from the sober teaching of the social consciousness.