The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

Religion is corrected, then, by light obtained from these sources: man's knowledge of his highest interests, and his knowledge of nature. As a rule, one or the other of these two methods of criticism tends to predominate, in accordance with the genius of the race or period. Thus, the evolution of Greek religion is determined mainly by the development of science. Xenophanes attacks the religion of his times on the ground of its crude anthropomorphism. "Mortals," he says, "think that the gods are born as they are, and have perception like theirs, and voice and form." But this naïve opinion Xenophanes corrects because it is not consistent with the new enlightenment concerning the archê, or first principle of nature. "And he [God] abideth ever in the same place, moving not at all; nor doth it befit him to go about, now hither, now thither." [5]

In a later age Lucretius criticised the whole system of Greek religion in terms of the atomistic and mechanical cosmology of Epicurus:

For verily not by design did the first-beginnings of things station themselves each in its right place guided by keen intelligence, nor did they bargain sooth to say what motions each should assume; but because many in number and shifting about in many ways throughout the universe they are driven and {227} tormented by blows during infinite time past, after trying motions and unions of every kind at length they fall into arrangements such as those out of which this our sum of things has been formed.[6]

In the light of such principles Lucretius demonstrates the absurdity of hoping or fearing anything from a world beyond or a life to come. In this case, as in the case above, the religion of enlightenment does not differ essentially from the religion of the average man in its conception of the interests at stake, but only in its conception of the methods of worship or forms of imagery which it is reasonable to employ in view of the actual nature of the environment.

If, on the other hand, we turn to the early development of the Hebrew religion, we find that it is corrected to meet the demands not of cosmological but of ethical enlightenment. No question arises as to the existence or power of God, but only as to what he requires of those who serve him. The prophets represent the moral genius of the race, its acute discernment of the causes of social integrity or decay. "And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil: learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve {228} the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." [7]

But whichever of these two methods of criticism predominates, it is clear that they both draw upon bodies of truth which grow independently of religion. The history of Christianity affords a most remarkable record of the continual adjustment of religious belief to secular rationality. The offices of religion have availed no more to justify cruelty, intolerance, and bigotry than to establish the Ptolemaic astronomy or the Scriptural account of creation. This is more readily admitted in the case of natural science than in the case of ethics, but only because teachers of religion have commonly had a more expert acquaintance with moral matters than with the orbits of the planets or the natural history of the earth.

For the principles of conduct, like the principles of nature, must be derived from a study of the field to which they are applied. They require nothing more for their establishment than the analysis and generalization of the moral situation. If two or more persons conduct themselves with reference to one another and to an external object, their action either possesses or lacks, in some degree, that specific value which we call moral goodness. And by the principles of ethics we mean the principles which truly define and explicate this value. Now neither the truth nor {229} the falsity of any religion affects these fundamental and essential conditions. If the teachings of religion be accepted as true, then certain factors may be added to the concrete practical situation; but if so, these fall within the field of morality and must be submitted to ethical principles. Thus, if there be a God whose personality permits of reciprocal social relations with man, then man ought, in the moral sense, to be prudent with reference to him, and may reasonably demand justice or good-will at his hands.

But the mere existence of a God, whatever be his nature, can neither invalidate nor establish the ethical principles of prudence, justice, and good-will. Were a God whose existence is proved, to recommend injustice, this would not affect in the slightest degree the moral obligation to be just. Moral revelation stands upon precisely the same footing as revelation in the sphere of theoretical truth: its acceptance can be justified only through its being confirmed by experience or reason. In other words, it is the office of revelation to reveal truth, but not to establish it. In consequence of this fact it may even be necessary that a man should redeem the truth in defiance of what he takes to be the disposition of God. Neither individual conscience nor the moral judgment of mankind can be superseded or modified save through a higher insight which these may {230} themselves be brought to confirm. Whatever a man may think of God, if he continues to live in the midst of his fellows, he places himself within the jurisdiction of the laws which obtain there. Morality is the method of reconciling and fulfilling the interests of beings having the capacity to conduct themselves rationally, and ethics is the formulation of the general principles which underlie this method. The attempt to live rationally—and, humanly speaking, there is no alternative save the total abnegation of life—brings one within the jurisdiction of these principles, precisely as thinking brings one within the jurisdiction of the principles of logic, or as the moving of one's body brings one within the jurisdiction of the principles of mechanics.

Religion, then, mediates an enlightenment which it does not of itself originate. In religious belief the truth which is derived from a studious observation of nature and the cumulative experience of life, is heightened and vivified. Like all belief religion is conservative, and rightly so. But in the long run, steadily and inevitably, it responds to every forward step which man is enabled to take through the exercise of his natural cognitive powers. Only so does religion serve its real purpose of benefiting life by expanding its horizon and defining its course.

I have hitherto left out of account a certain {231} stress or insistence that must now be recognized as fundamental in religious development. This I shall call the optimistic bias. This bias is not accidental or arbitrary, but significant of the fact that religion, like morality, springs from the same motive as life itself, and makes towards the same goal of fruition and abundance. Life is essentially interest, and interest is essentially positive or provident; fear is incidental to hope, and hate to love. Man seeks to know the worst only in order that he may avoid or counterwork it in the furtherance of his interests. Religion is the result of man's search for support in the last extremity. This is true, even when men are largely preoccupied with the mere struggle for existence. It appears more and more plainly as life becomes aggressive, and is engaged in the constructive enterprise of civilization. Religion expresses man's highest hope of attainment, whether this be conceived as the efficacy of a fetich or the kingdom of God.