If the nature of Jesus were radically and essentially different from ours; if he differed from us in kind, instead of in degree; if he were “very God,” instead of a perfected man, as the result of “Living the Life”; then he can have little in common with us; and, so far as “like natures,” “common temptations,” and human sympathies, and destinies, are concerned, he might as well have been born on the planet Mars.
But suppose that psychic and spiritual science could so define the faculties, capacities, and powers of man, and the nature and laws of the human soul, as to demonstrate the fact that Jesus became Christos through “living the life,” and “doing the will of the Father,” in strict conformity to both Natural and Divine Law, thus revealing the fact that these potencies are latent in every human soul: that it does not depend so much upon what we believe, as upon what we do; not so much upon what we profess, as upon what we are; not so much upon what Jesus did for us, as upon what we do for ourselves and for others, in strict analogy with the life and the teachings of Jesus. Would not Jesus become, indeed and in truth, a Living Example, in place of a “Blood Offering”?
Theology ignores and sophisticates Personal Responsibility, which everything else, and every experience in life, justifies and enforces as the basis of Morals.
On the other hand, so-called Psychic Science misapprehends, belittles, and sophisticates the Human Will, the prime Motor Power of Man. It then confuses Rational Volition and Domination by juggling with the words Suggestion and Hypnosis.
This reveals the fact that they have no rational concept whatever of the psychical nature of man, not even a “working hypothesis” of the Human Soul. Theologians affirm, “Science” denies, and so they still face each other in this Twentieth Century with “A war of words,” though, to a considerable extent, they have ceased making faces and calling each other names, because there is a deeper struggle going on.
The Theological Hierarchy, worldly-wise in every generation, has dropped the cry of Heresy and gone to the very foundations of our civilization. They are sapping and mining the foundations of civil Liberty, the “self-evident truths,” and the “Inalienable Rights,” upon which this government was founded.
Here is a thoroughly-organized, relentless determination, openly declared, and well under way to destroy our “Free Public Schools,” and substitute that “Organized Ignorance,” the Parochial Schools, as the first step in reuniting Church and State, through dogmatic authority instilled into the youths of this country. Not one citizen in a thousand seems to realize what is here being attempted, how thoroughly organized it is, or what immense progress in this direction has already been made; or, if they know, they do not seem to care.
It may thus be seen what practical and vital issues we are facing and how much is involved in the “Cross of Religion,” and the “Crux of Science.”
Intelligence, Education, the Light of Science, and the Illumination of true Religion, are pitted in a conflict with Ignorance, Superstition, and Fear; dogmatism, degeneration, and devolution.
Science and Religion represent different departments in human interests and the life of man. So far as they are each true, they must eventually, and inevitably clasp hands, instead of working at cross-purposes.