What remains to him as an independent realm for religion is nevertheless worthy of recognition. As faith of the human mind in a transcendental unity which manifests itself in the manifold and sensible, and carries through a moral order of the world—although one which, by the before-mentioned limitation of the natural connection of guilt and punishment, is very much reduced—religion gives to the mind warmth and worship; as confidence of the heart in an infinite possession in the anguish of the finite, it creates confidence in God, gratitude, devotion, energy, courage of life; as reverence for a holiness which stands unimpeachable above the fluctuating inclinations of our will, awakens the consciousness of guilt, and abolishes the guilt, it remains the basis of all moral action. Lang also sharply and correctly points out the insufficiency of Strauss's "The Old Faith and the New," as well as the conflict between his metaphysical naturalism which only leads to the struggle for existence, and his demand of self-submission to the universe, and of the moral and spiritual self-determination of man as of a being which goes beyond nature. Nevertheless we can not follow Lang in his
ways of reform. First—his conception of God is amazingly meagre, and of more than a Spencerian unapproachableness. God is to him, according to his "Dogmatics," nothing but the eternal, in itself perfect cause of all being, exempted from all changes of the world's process. When he gives the name of father to this primeval cause, as he does in his sermons and elsewhere, without being able to admit relation of mutual love of person to person, he only makes it glaringly evident how little his abstract metaphysics can satisfy religious need. Second—that which is claimed to be gained by this modern view of the world (namely, extension of the supremacy of religion to everything, even to the affairs of daily life), is not at all new, but is the effect of long-existing sound religiousness, and is the essence of all sound religious doctrine; and we therefore can not see how a view of the world, which, for instance, denies divine providence, and limits the hearing of prayer to its psychological effects, shall have greater force to leaven the whole daily life religiously, than our Christian faith in the Father without whose will no sparrow falls to the ground, and who says to his children: "Call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." Third—exactly that which Lang declares a purification of religion (namely, the before-mentioned elimination of divine providence and of all that which is connected therewith), appears to us not at all as a reform, but as an immense impoverishment and desolation of religion, which is so far from being required by natural science, that it turns out to be but a concession to the most superficial metaphysicians who, of course, have become very popular.
Friedrich Vischer is also to be ranked in this group. In the sixth part of his "Kritische Gänge" ("Critical Walks"), he speaks of Strauss' "The Old Faith and the New," and takes his determined position in reference to the religious question, quite essentially differing from Strauss. In regard to the aversion to miracles, he stands on the same ground with Strauss and Lang; in protesting against Strauss' elimination of the idea of design, and especially in demanding a moral order of the world, he is still more energetic than Lang. He particularly does not, like Lang, limit the moral order of the world to the simple empiric causal connection between human action and its consequences. But on the other hand, by his opposition to the idea of a personality of God, he again deviates more than Lang from the true meaning of Christian religiousness. On page 219 he says: "How, in spite of the infinite crossings of human action, is inner conformity to the end in view in general so established through that which we call chance, or rather by means of these crossings, that we can speak of a moral order of the world? Men, individuals as well as communities, follow their aims. Hereby there always results something quite different from that which they intended and wished. Sublime laws govern above us, between us, full of mystery in the midst of life; one of them in reference to guilt, punishment of guilt, is called nemesis. Faith in that meaning of the word, which we regard as a low one [he means the faith which has its dogmas beyond which the man of the most recent culture has passed, not knowing that he also carries around with him his dogmas, his "new faith">[ is in need of a person who founds, carries out, and executes
these laws. But the faith of the monists has no such need. Why not? That needs more sufficient demonstration."
Certainly it needs more sufficient demonstration. But this demonstration will never be possible, so long as we acknowledge the government of a moral order of the world. For this leads of necessity to faith in a living God, and this faith demands from our conception less pretensions than the faith in a kind of system of spiritual machinery by which chance and the wished-for are woven together, without this system proceeding from a highly spiritual and ethical intelligence. It nevertheless must be acknowledged that Vischer, from the standpoint of ethical need, vindicates the position and truth of religion, as he also beautifully and correctly defines its position in reference to morality, in saying that morality makes the demand, religion gives the strength to meet it.
From another side, Gustav Jäger makes a compromise between Darwinism and religion in his five lectures on "Die Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung zu Moral und Religion" ("The Darwinian Theory and its Position in Reference to Morality and Religion"), Stuttgart, J. Hoffmann, 1869.
He makes still more valid concessions to religion and Christianity than Lang and Vischer; directly opposes materialistic monism; leaves to faith in a personal God, in the divinity of Christ, in individual immortality, in the answer to prayer beyond the psychological effect, in miracles, in short, to the full contents of Christian religiousness, their weight and truth; and in that respect we would have to rank him in the following group, if he
did not by his manner of proving these concessions exclude himself from it, and rank himself in that group of which we treat in the present section.
According to his opinion, Darwinism gives to religion, if not new contents (although these contents are entirely subject to revision according to Darwinism), still a wholly new foundation, and, indeed, a foundation of subjective religiousness, as well as of the objective contents of religion, only from the standpoint of its practical usefulness in the struggle for existence. The faith in a personal God, in immortality, in redemption by the God-Man Jesus Christ, in the hearing of prayer, in help in danger even to the extent of miracles, strengthens man, gives to him a superiority to those who do not have that faith and who do not have the habit of prayer, and therefore is so far the best weapon in the struggle for existence; and herein lies the truth of religion, especially of the Christian religion, as the most successful weapon in the struggle for existence which takes place through the whole creation, from the lowest organisms up to the highest spiritual life of mankind.