Some reasons why the quest for reality is not more frequently and earnestly undertaken.
a. The moral failure of Christians
Some refrain from any effort to make religious attainments because of the moral failures among professing Christians. But there are many failures in business, education, citizenship, and every other line of human endeavor that is worth while. On that basis a person would refuse to live at all. We all know there are some religious sceptics who are much more upright than some believers. From a Christian civilization they have inherited strong wills, a deep moral sense, and physical bodies with no marked weakness. Many of them have kindly dispositions and charming graces. Among their most helpful friends and favorite authors they count many of the best religious people. They themselves are one of the best by-products of Christianity. If they did not live in a Christian civilization they would not be what they are. Many such are doubters simply because they have not found their religious teachers. They have probably encountered that which, for their type of mind, was a very unfortunate religious environment. It would have been better for some people if they had had different parents, or a different Church, or both. However, it is a simple matter of observation that a large percentage of humanity is weak whether believing or sceptical, whether it goes to Church or does not go to Church. A man who has a real saint in him may at the same time have seven devils in himself to fight. With no patriotic ideals or emotions some men can keep morally straight, while some noble self-sacrificing patriot may, if he is not very careful, fall into the ditch. It is fortunate that some doubters are so good, and a pity that some Christians are so bad; but regardless of just how good or bad any of us is, if this universe has a Soul it is of the greatest importance that we make His personal acquaintance and learn His plans; and if in anything we have deviated from His plans we should humbly repent and get in line with the Power that must ultimately break us if it cannot make us. If one is strong enough to perform ordinary duties without the conscious help of God, that is no reason why he should run away from his Father and treat Him with silent contempt. The Father desires the company of His son, and in a thousand ways great and small needs His son's help.
b. Because the average Christian cannot answer technical questions
Others regard the religious verities lightly because the average Christian cannot answer technical questions pertaining to his faith. Yet there is not one cultivated person in a thousand that can answer technical questions concerning the material universe in which we all live. The most highly civilized and prosperous community succeeds simply because it relies on the technical knowledge of the few. Most of us know electricity neither practically nor theoretically. Even among practical electricians, how many could answer more than the simplest questions? It requires no profound knowledge of the subject to wire a house and give its occupants light and comfort. Yet the practical electrician knows as well as the expert that he is dealing with a real force, and may be able to wire the house better than the theoretical electrician himself could do. How many good cooks are there who could chemically analyze the food which they have prepared for their families? It is absurd to expect the average Christian to go into all the psychology and philosophy of his religion; as it is absurd to deny the reality of his experience because a full analysis is not forthcoming. The large majority of people have neither time nor qualifications to go into an exhaustive and technical examination of the philosophy and science of religion, any more than they have to go into the philosophy and science of the material world. Fortunately, a more practical way stands wide open to them. Because men are men, they may possess the great realities before they can adequately explain them. They know the stars before they are astronomers. They have an implicit knowledge of God which under right conditions becomes explicit. They have intuitions and common sense, the foundation of all knowledge. It is their privilege, likewise, to put things to the severe test of use. In the material world men risk their lives and fortunes on the truth of sciences of which, at first hand, they are totally ignorant. But by so doing they find themselves the richer and the wiser. Likewise, the Christian multitudes who take the spiritual world practically, find themselves the recipients of untold blessings. Their knowledge, to be sure, is only practical, but it is their knowledge, and they would be willing to die for it if necessary. One may have the reality without the analysis, or he may have the analysis without the reality, or, unfortunately, he may have neither. The happiest possible situation is where he has both. A man may be justified in giving money and labor for the support and extension of religion without himself being a psychologist or a theologian. Just as the men who have given the most money for the advancement of the sciences do not know enough about these sciences to teach them. Yet we do not call them fools; we highly esteem them as philanthropists and benefactors. They are often as intellectual in the practical world as the scholars are in the scientific world. The practical and theoretical everywhere supplement each other.
There should be experts, by all means, who know religion technically as well as practically. And to these many inquiring troubled minds should go for help, just as the business man goes to the experts for knowledge that lies beyond him. Some sceptics take special delight in perplexing common Christians with the deepest philosophical aspects of their faith. Why do they not go to the experts? Many religious doubters never go to any one with their problems; while others of a more superficial character go to the religious quacks, and thenceforward help to swell the ranks of some ridiculous or fanatical religion.
It is doubtless true that almost every one could find his religious teacher if only he would look for him; one who could interpret religion in such a way as to satisfy his reason and meet his deepest need. If there is any possible way of bringing honest doubters and religious experts together it should be done for their mutual benefit. But here is one of the gravest practical difficulties that we have to face.
c. Antiquated forms irritating to sceptics
Crude ideas still cling to the popular statements of religion as barnacles cling to a ship. This unfortunate and unnecessary fact drives away from the Church many conscientious minds. Though not many of us are scientists, yet we all live in a fairly well reconstructed material universe. Without knowing any mathematical astronomy our general notion of the heavens is fairly correct. Ignorant as we are of physics and chemistry, yet we have in our minds a moderately fair picture of a world that is compounded from the gases. The old picture of the material world has given place to the new, even among the uneducated masses. But, sad to say, the simple, complete picture of the reconstructed religious world has never been given to the masses. Sometimes we lug in a little of the dry and technical science that lies back of the new picture, but rarely do we give the picture concrete and whole, unburdened and untrammeled by the technical substratum. As a result only a handful of Christians have the simple, modern conception of religion in anything like complete form. Yet no task should be easier or more delightful than just this work of giving the people a complete picture of the religious world in which we live. Recently I met a man who is a good worker in one of the most prominent churches in America, and I was surprised to find that his ideas of religion compare with those of his renowned minister as the Ptolemaic astronomy compares with the Copernican,—and yet he has no realization of the discrepancy. His capable minister should draw the picture for him. A great many sincere and genuine churches greatly irritate the sceptical mind because of the forms in which their religious ideas are clothed. Like a grapevine that is never trimmed, their faith is free and easy and of luxurious growth. To the critical doubter the suffocating atmosphere of the Church seems unreasoning and unreasonable. It is not that he wants something learned, but something that does not rough his mind into a state of irritation. The mischief done is great.
It is the imperative duty of some people to go to another Church; and in some cases to another denomination. Though the fault is on both sides, yet they will never be able to make a harmonious adjustment.