What think ye of Christ? This is indeed in many ways a test-question, and we ought frankly to meet it. I have feared heretofore to touch this question. I now only throw out some brief suggestions—scatter some seed-thoughts. Does Evolution have anything to say on this also? I think it does. This I proceed to show:
As organic evolution reached its goal and completion in man, so human evolution must reach its goal and completion in the ideal man—i. e., the Christ. According to this view, the Christ is the ideal man, and therefore—(mark the necessary implication)—and therefore the Divine man. We are all as men (as contradistinguished from brutes)—we are all, I say, sons of God; the Christ is the well-beloved Son. We are all in the image of God; he is the express and perfect image. We are all partakers in various degrees of the Divine nature; in him the Divine nature is completely realized. It is not necessary that the ideal man—the Christ—should be perfect in knowledge or in power; on the contrary, he must grow in wisdom and in stature, like other men; but he must be perfect in character. Character is essential spirit. All else, even knowledge, is only environment for its culture. In the dazzling light of modern science we are apt to forget this. Character is the attitude of the human spirit toward the Divine Spirit. If I should add anything to this definition, I would say it is spiritual attitude and spiritual energy. In the Christ this attitude must be wholly right; the harmony—the union with the Divine—must be perfect. This perfect union gives, of necessity, also fullness of spiritual energy.
Now, I wish to show that, although the Christ as thus defined must be human—yes, even more intensely human than any one of us—yet by the law of evolution we ought to expect him to differ from us in an inconceivable degree, and especially in a superhuman way. This I do by a series of illustrations.
We have said that the Christ is the ideal and therefore the Divine man—that he is the goal and completion of humanity. But in evolution a goal is not only a completion of one stage, but also the beginning of another and higher stage—on a higher plane of life with new and higher capacities and powers unimaginable from any lower plane. Let me illustrate:
1. As man is the ideal—the goal and completion of animal evolution, and yet is he also a birth into a higher plane of life—the spiritual; so the Christ, the ideal man, may be only the goal and completion of human evolution, and yet is he also a birth into a new and higher plane—the Divine.
2. As the human spirit pre-existed in embryo in animals, slowly developing through all geological times, until it came to birth and immortality in man, so the Divine spirit is in embryo in man in various degrees of development, and comes to birth and completion of Divine life in the Christ.
3. As animals reached, finally, conscious relations with God in man, even so man reaches union with God in the Christ. As man, the ideal animal, is a union of the animal with the spiritual; so the Christ, the ideal of human evolution, is a union of the human and the Divine.
4. Finally: As with the appearance of man there were introduced new powers and properties unimaginable from the animal point of view, and therefore from that point of view seemingly supernatural—i. e., above their nature—so with the appearance of the Christ we ought to expect new powers and properties unimaginable from the human point of view, and therefore to us seemingly supernatural—i. e., above our nature.
The Christ as defined above—i. e., as the ideal man—is undoubtedly a true object of rational worship. There are two and only two fundamental moral principles, viz., love to God and love to man. Both of these must be embodied in a rational worship. The one must be embodied in the worship of an Infinite Spirit—God; the other in the worship of the ideal man—the Christ.
But some one will object that, admitting all this, it is impossible that the goal, the ideal, should appear until the end of the course of evolution. To him I answer: This is indeed true of animal evolution, but not of human evolution. We have already seen (see [p. 88 et seq.]) that there is an essential difference in this regard between these two kinds of evolution. In addition to all the factors of organic evolution, in human progress there is a new and higher factor added, which immediately takes precedence of all others. This factor is the conscious voluntary co-operation of the human spirit in the work of its own evolution. The method of this new factor consists essentially in the formation, and especially in the voluntary pursuit, of ideals. In organic evolution species are transformed by the environment. In human evolution character is transformed by its own ideal. Organic evolution is by necessary law—human evolution is by voluntary effort, i. e., by free law. Organic evolution is pushed onward and upward from behind and below. Human evolution is drawn upward and forward from above and in front by the attractive force of ideals. Thus the ideal of organic evolution can not appear until the end; while the attractive ideals of human evolution must come—whether only in the imagination or realized in the flesh—but must come somehow in the course. The most powerfully attractive ideal ever presented to the human mind, and, therefore, the most potent agent in the evolution of human character, is the Christ. This ideal must come—whether in the imagination or in the flesh I say not, but—must come somehow in the course and not at the end. At the end the whole human race, drawn upward by this ideal, must reach the fullness of the stature of the Christ.