And if, then, the abstract possibility of endless resistance to God by men cannot be denied; so neither can the possibility—perhaps one might even say, the practical probability—be denied that God, in his infinite love and patience and wisdom, may finally win them all out of their resistance. And the eternal hope is at least open; but it is open, it should be noted, only upon the fulfilment by men of precisely those moral conditions which hold now in the earthly life, and which ought now to be obeyed. There will never be an easier way to God. It is shallow thinking that supposes that, if there be any possibility of turning to God in the future life, it is of small moment that one should now put himself where he ought to be. The full results of all our evil sowing, we must receive. The utmost that on any rational theory, then, can be held out to men, is the hope that, facing a greater heritage of evil than now they face, they might return to God under the same condition of absolute moral surrender, which now holds, and the fulfilment of which is now far more easily possible to them.
And it ought not to be overlooked that, even if the principle of reverence for personality be much less far-reaching than is here affirmed, the annihilation of a soul by God could seem justified only upon the assumption that God foresaw the entire future, and knew that the soul would never turn to righteousness and God. But if the doctrine of annihilation is to be justified on that ground, it is to be observed, that the same foreknowledge would have enabled God to know before creation all the finally incorrigible, if there were to be any such, and so he need not have called these into being at all. A goal, therefore, as great if not far greater, than that offered by the annihilation theory would be, thus, attainable simply upon the same assumption that must rationally be made by that theory, and, at the same time, the great objection to that theory—its violation of personality—would be avoided.
It seems probable that this very principle of reverence for personality contains the chief reason why more has not been revealed to us concerning the future life. Christianity is very far from satisfying our curiosity here. It gives little more than the absolutely needed assurance of the fact and worth of the life beyond. Details are either quite lacking, or given only in broadest symbols. This reticent silence of revelation seems needed if our individual initiative is not to be hindered, either by excess of motive on the one hand, or by the depression of an unappreciated ideal on the other hand.
On the one hand, that is, so far as we could understand a detailed revelation of the future life, to set it forth with the realism of the present life would be to interfere with that unobtrusive relation of God to us, which we have seen to be so necessary to our highest moral training. We need, in this time of our training, a certain obscurity of spiritual truth; we need to walk by faith, not by sight. To be able so obviously to weigh the eternal realities against the temporal, would hinder rather than help our growth in loyal, unselfish character.
On the other hand, if a complete and indubitable revelation of the future life were given us, no doubt there would be much that could make but small appeal to us, and might even prove positively depressing, because we have not yet the experience which would interpret to us its meaning and open to us its joy. Our earthly life may furnish us an analogy. The joy of a grown man is often preëminently in his work, but he would find it difficult to explain to a child the source of his joy. And if the child were told that there would come a time in a few years when his chief joy would be found in work, the prospect would probably not seem to him inviting. The wisest of us may be as little prepared to enter in detail into the meaning of the future life.
We may be content to know that the future life is, and is of value beyond that which we can now understand; and we may be assured that at least what we have already seen to be the ideal conditions of the richest life,[119] as now we understand life, will be fully met in the future life. We can hardly doubt, therefore, that the two great centers of the life beyond must be association and work; though we may not know the precise forms that these will take, nor how greatly both may deepen beyond our present conception. Steadily deepening personal relations, rooted in the one absolutely satisfying relation to God in Christ, there must be; and work, in which one may lose himself with joy, because it is God's work. This, at least, the future life will contain. We can hardly go farther with assurance.
But perhaps even this may suggest, that men may vary much in the proportionate emphasis laid upon these two great sources of life, and still alike come into a genuine and rewarding relation to God. That God has counted individuality among men to be of prime significance, the facts of creation hardly allow us to doubt. Possibly it is only another application of this same principle of reverence for the person, in the recognition of that individuality which has its great joy in work, which is to be found in what Professor George F. Genung suggestively calls "an apocalypse of Kipling." In Kipling's poem to Wolcott Balestier, Professor Genung sees "the discovery of a religion, or assignable and eternally rewardable relation to God, in those whose inner life is not introspective or self-expressive." Their spiritual life "serves God with the joy which comes of following and satisfying, in the sphere of his plans, the eager bent of a conquering will." "It is the religion of work and of daring." And "it is only in the open vision of an eternal world that their secular ardor, which was unconsciously serving God all along, begins to come to the perception of a transcendent master and to be transformed into an adoration, an obedience and loyalty, a 'will to serve or to be still as fitteth our Father's praise.'"
It is quite possible that through our very failure to enter into God's own deep reverence for the person, in the recognition of man's divinely given individuality, as well as through failure to recognize the essential like-mindedness of men, we have been shutting the door of hope, where God has not shut it, and have limited beyond warrant the divine mercy. Even in the life of heaven men cannot be all alike. "Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? to his own lord he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand; for the Lord hath power to make him stand."[120]
[92] The Limits of Evolution, p. x.
[93] Cf. above, pp. 22, 66, 106.
[94] See especially Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp. 239, 377, 378; James, The Will to Believe, pp. 145 ff.
[95] Cf. above, p. 44 ff
[96] See King, Reconstruction in Theology, pp. 241 ff.
[97] Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II, p. 626.
[98] See King, Reconstruction in Theology, Chaps. VI and VII.
[99] I aim here to bring out with some fullness the significance of the propositions briefly summarized in the Reconstruction in Theology, p. 244; and I venture to repeat, also, two quotations from that book, because they fit so closely into the argument here.
[100] The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 378.
[101] Cf. King, Reconstruction in Theology, pp. 232, 233, 248, 249.
[102] See King, Reconstruction in Theology, p. 209; and below, p. 209.
[103] The Limits of Evolution, p. 7.
[104] Ethics and Revelation, p. 270.
[105] Cf. King, Reconstruction in Theology, pp. 205 ff.
[106] Cf. Lotze, The Microcosmus, Vol. II, pp. 690 ff.
[107] See Reconstruction in Theology, Chapter VI.
[108] Ethics and Revelation, p. 270.
[109] See the fuller statement in the Reconstruction in Theology, pp. 96-108.
[110] Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 483.
[111] Outline of Christian Theology, pp. 161, ff.
[112] Jesus Christ and the Social Question, p. 101.
[113] Cf. Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, pp. 434, 435.
[114] Union with God, p. 109.
[115] The Communion of the Christian with God, p. 143.
[116] An Outline of Christian Theology, p. 464.
[117] The Candle of the Lord and Other Sermons, p. 197.
[118] The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 467.
[119] See above, pp. 68 ff.
[120] Romans 14:4.