International Congress of Arts and Science, Volume 1 / Philosophy and Metaphysics

by Unknown

The claim of the Church to infallibility and divine inspiration of its dogmas is weakened under this view of the work of the philosophy of religion. Prophetical inspiration and ecstasy, which usually were thought to be supernatural revelations, are now declared by the present psychology to come under the category of other analogous experiences, such as the action of mental powers which, under definite conditions of individual gifts and on historical occasions, have manifested themselves in extraordinary forms of consciousness. However, these enthusiastic forms of prophetical consciousness cannot be accepted for a higher form of knowledge or even as of divine origin and as an infallible proclamation of the truth; on the contrary, these forms are to be judged as pathological appearances, which may be more harmful than beneficent for the ethical value of the prophetical intuition. At least, it has come to pass that all forms of revelation must come under the examination of a psychological analysis and of an analogical judgment. Hence their traditional nimbus of unique, supernatural, and absolute authority is for all time destroyed.

We are carried to the same result by the comparative study of the history of religions. The study shows us that the Christian Church, with its dogma of the divine inspiration of the Bible, does not stand alone; that before and after Christianity other religions made exactly the same claims for their sacred scriptures. By the pious Brahman the Veda is regarded as infallible and eternal; he believes the hymns of the old seers were not composed by the seers themselves, but were taken from an original copy in heaven. The Buddhist sees in the sayings of his sacred book "Dhammapadam" the exact inheritance of the infallible words of his omniscient teacher Buddha. For the confessor of Ahuramazda the Zendavesta contains the scriptural revelation of the good spirit unto the prophet Zarathustra; according to the rabbis the laws revealed unto Moses on Mount Sinai were even before the creation of the world the object of the observation of God; for the faithful Mohammedan the Koran is the copy of an ever-present original in heaven, the contents of which were dictated word for word to Mohammed by the angel Gabriel. Whoever ponders the similar claims of all these religions for the infallibility of their sacred books, to him it becomes difficult to hold the dogma of the Christian Church concerning the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible as alone true and the similar dogmas of other religions as being false. Rather he will accept the view that in all these examples there are found the same motives of the religious mind, that here is given an expression to the same need common to all seeking for an absolute and abiding basis for their faith.

The study of the comparison of religions has discovered in religions other than that of Christianity many very striking parallels to many narratives and teachings of the Bible. It may be well to recall very briefly some of the important points. Owing to the fact that the Assyrian cuneiform writings have now been deciphered, there has been found a story of the creation which has many characteristics in common with those of the Bible. There is found a story of a flood, which in its very details can be regarded as the forerunner of the story of the flood in the Bible. There have been found Assyrian penitential psalms, which, in consciousness of guilt and in earnestness of prayer for forgiveness, can well be compared with many psalms of the Bible. Recently the Code of the Assyrian King Hammurabi, who reigned two thousand three hundred years before Christ, has been discovered. The similarity of this Code with many of the early Mosaic Laws has called general attention to this fact. In the Persian religion there are found teachings of the Kingdom of God, of the good spirits who surround the throne of God, of the Spirit hostile to God and of an army of his demons, of the judgment of each soul after death, of a heaven with eternal light and of the dark abyss of hell, of the future struggle of the multitudes of good and bad spirits and the victory over the bad through a divine hero and saviour, of the general resurrection of the dead, of the awful destruction of the world and the creation of a new and better world,—teachings which are also found in the later Jewish theology and apocalypse, so that the acceptance of a dependence of Jewish upon corresponding Persian teaching can hardly be avoided. Also Grecian influence is observed in later Jewish literature, in proverbs, in the wisdom of Solomon and the Son of Sirach; especially in the Alexandrian Jewish theology are found Platonic thoughts of an eternal, ideal world, of the heavenly home of the soul, and the Stoic conception of a world-ruling divine Logos.

It is from this source that the Logos to which Philo had already ascribed the meaning of the Son of God and the Bringer of a divine revelation crossed over into Christian theology and became the foundation of the dogma of the Church concerning the person of Christ. Of still greater importance than even all this was the opening of the Indian and especially the Buddhistic religious writings. In these we have, five hundred years before Christianity, the revelation of redemptive religion, resting upon the ethical foundation of the abnegation of self and the withdrawal from the world. In the centre of this religion is Gautama Buddha, the ideal teacher of redeeming truth, whose human life was adorned by the faith of his followers with a crown of wonderful legends; from an abode in heaven, out of mercy to the world, he descended into the world, conceived and born of a virgin mother, greeted and entertained by heavenly spirits, recognized beforehand by a pious seer as the future redeemer of the world; as a youth he manifested a wisdom beyond that of his teachers. Then after the reception of an illuminating revelation, he victoriously overcomes the temptation of the devil, who would cause him to become faithless to his call to redemption. Then he begins to preach of the coming of the Kingdom of Justice, and sends forth his disciples, two by two, as messengers of his gospel to all people. Although he declares that it is not his calling to perform miracles, nevertheless the legends indeed tell how many sick were healed, how with the contents of a small basket hundreds were fed, how possessed of all knowledge he reveals hidden things; how overcoming the limitations of space and time, swaying in the air, being transfigured in a heavenly light, he reveals himself to his disciples just before his death. And at last, in the faith of his followers, having passed from the position of a human teacher to that of an eternal heavenly spirit and lord of the world, he is exalted as the object of prayer and reverence, to many millions of the human race in Southern and Eastern Asia.

It is hardly possible that the knowledge of this parallel from India to the New Testament, and of the Babylonian and Persian parallel to the Old Testament, can be without influence upon the religious thought of Christian people. Although we may be ever so much convinced concerning the essential superiority of our religion over all other religions, nevertheless the dogmatic contrast between absolute truth on the one side and complete falsity on the other can no more be maintained. In place of this view there must enter the view of a relative grade of differences between the higher and lower stages of development. No longer can we see in other religions only mistakes and fiction, but under the husk of their legends many precious kernels of truth must be seen, expressions of inner religious feelings and of noble ethical sentiments. One should therefore accept the position not to object to the same discrimination between husk and kernel in the matter of one's own religion, and to recognize in its inherited traditions and dogmas legendary elements, the explanation of which is to be found in psychical motives and in historical surroundings, even as they are found in the corresponding parts of religions other than the Christian religion. Therefore the historical comparison of religions takes us away from an absolute dogmatic positivism to a relative evolutionary manner of study, placing all religions without exception under the laws of time progression and under the causal connection of the law of cause and effect. The isolation of religion therefore is no more. It is regarded as being a part of other human historical affairs, and must yield to the test of a thorough unhindered research. The value of the Christian religion can never suffer in the view of a reasonable man, when it is not accepted in blind faith, but as the result of discriminating comparison.

As the evolutionary philosophy of religion uses the method of science without exception in the case of all historical religions, so also it does not shrink from taking up the question of the beginning of religion, but believes that here also is found the key in the analytical, critical, and comparative method. And here is found the assistance of the comparative study of languages, ethnology, and paleontology.

The celebrated Sanscrit scholar, Max Müller, sought in the comparative study of mythology to prove the etymological relation of many of the Grecian gods and heroes with those of the mythology of India and to trace the common origin of all these mythical beings and legends in the personification of the movements of the heavenly bodies, the thunder and lightning, the tempest and the rain. All mythical belief in gods of the Indo-Germanic peoples seems to have arisen out of a poetical view and dramatic personification of the powers of nature. Suggestive as this hypothesis is, it is not by any means sufficient to give us a complete explanation of the subject. In fact, others have shown that primitive religion does not altogether consist in mythical conceptions, but mainly in reverential actions, sacrifices, sacraments, vows, and other similar cults, which have very little to do with the atmospherical powers of nature, but rather with the social life of primitive people. And when once the sight was clearly directed to the social meaning of the religious rites, it was then observed that even the earliest legends concerning the gods were connected far more closely with the habits and customs of early society than with the facts of nature. Tyler's celebrated book concerning "Primitive Civilization" is written from this standpoint, an epoch-making book, showing the original close connection of religion with the entire civilization of humanity, with the views of life and death, the social customs, the forms of law, their strivings in art and science; a book with a large amount of information, brought together from observation on all sides. In this channel are found all the researches which to-day are classified under the name of Folklore; seeking to gather the still existing characteristic customs and forms, legends, stories, and sayings, in order to compose these and to discover the survivals of earliest religion, poetry, and civilization of humanity. The gain of this study pursued with so great diligence is not to be underrated. These studies show that all that, which at one time existed as faith in the spirit of humanity, possessed within its very nature the strongest power of continuance, so that in new and strange conditions and in other forms it continued to remain. Under all changes and progress of history there is still found an unbroken connection of constant development.

As important, however, as the possession of a general knowledge of historical forms of development is to the philosophy of religion, nevertheless the possession of this knowledge is not wholly a fulfillment of the purpose of the philosophy of religion. To understand a development means not merely to know how one thing follows as the result of the other, but also to understand the law which lies at the foundation of all empirical changes and at the same time controls the end of the development. If this principle holds good in the understanding of the development in the processes of nature, much more does the principle hold good in understanding the processes of intellectual development of humanity, which have for us not only a theoretical, but at the same time an eminently practical interest. The philosopher of religion sees in religious history not merely the coming together of similar forms, but an advance from the lowest stage of childlike ignorance to an ever purer and richer realization of the idea of religion, a divinely ordained progress for the education of humanity from the slavery of nature to the freedom of the spirit. The question now arises: where do we find the principle and law of this ever-rising development? Where do we find the measure of judgment for the relative value of religious appearances? It is clear that the general principle of the complete development cannot be found in a single fact which is only one of the many manifestations of the general principle, and it is just as clear that the absolute norm of judgment is not found in a single fact always relative, presenting to us the object of judgment and therefore being impossible to stand as the norm of judgment. Therefore the principle of religious development and the norm of its judgment can only be found in the inner being of the spirit of humanity, namely, in the necessary striving of the mind into an harmonious arrangement of all our conceptions, or the idea of the truth, and into the complete order of all our purposes, or the idea of the good. These ideas unite in the highest unity, in the Idea of God. Therefore the consciousness of God is the revelation of the original innate longing of reason after complete unity as a principle of universal harmony and consistence in all our thinking and willing. Hence, in the first place, arises the result that the development of the consciousness of God in the history of religion is always dependent upon the existing conditions of the two united sides, the theoretical perception of the truth and the moral standard of life. In the second place the result arises that the judgment of the value of all appearances in the history of religion depends as to whether and how far these appearances agree with the idea of the true and the good, and correspond with the demands of reason and conscience. That science which is engaged with the idea of the good we name Ethics; that which is engaged with the last principles of the perception of truth, using the expression of Aristotle, we may name Metaphysics, or following Plato—Dialectic. Recognizing then in the idea of God the synthesis of the idea of the true and the good, the philosophy of religion is closely related with both, Ethics and Metaphysics.

At present the relation of religion to morality is an object of much controversy. There are many who hold that morality without religion is not only possible but also very desirable; since they are of the opinion that moral strength is weakened, the will is without freedom, and its motives corrupted on account of religious conceptions. On the other hand, the Church, considering the experience of history, finds that religion has ever proved itself to be the strongest and most necessary aid to morality. In this contest the philosophy of religion occupies the position of a judge who is called upon to adjust the relative rights of the parties. The philosophy of religion brings to light the historical fact that from the very beginnings of human civilization, social life and morality were closely connected with religious conceptions and usages, and indeed always so interchangeable in their influence that the position of social civilization on the one side corresponded with the position of religious civilization on the other, just as the water-level in two communicating pipes. Therefore it follows that it is unjust and not historical to blame religion on account of the defects of a national and temporal morality; for these defects of morality, with the corresponding errors of religion, find a common ground in a low stage of development of the entire civilization of the people of the time and age. Further, it becomes the task of the philosophy of religion to examine whether this correspondence of religion and morality, recognized in history, is also found in the very nature of morality and religion. This question in the main is answered without doubt in the affirmative, for it is clear that the religious feeling of dependence upon one all-ruling power is well adapted not only to make keen the moral consciousness of obligation and to deepen the feeling of responsibility, but also to endow moral courage with power and to strengthen the hope of the solution of moral purposes. The clearer religious faith comprehends the relation of man to God, so much the more will that faith prove itself as a strong motive and a great incentive of the moral life. Such a conception will not make the moral will unfree but truly free, not in the sense of a selfish choice, but in the sense of a love that serves, knowing itself as an instrument of the divine will, who binds us all into a social organism, the kingdom of God. And, on the other hand, the more ideal the moral view of life, the higher and greater its aims, the more it recognizes its great task to care for the welfare not only of the individual but of all, to coöperate in the welfare and development of all forms of society, the more earnestly the moral mind will need a sincere faith that this is God's world, that above all the changes of time an eternal will is on the throne, whose all-wise guidance causes everything to be for the best unto those who love him.

A like middle position of arbitration falls to the philosophy of religion in the matter of the relation of religion to science. The first demand of science is freedom of thought, according to its own logical laws, and its fundamental assumption is the possibility of the knowledge of the world on the basis of the unchangeable laws of all existence and events. With this fundamental demand science places itself in opposition to the formal character of ecclesiastical doctrine so far as the doctrine claims infallible authority resting upon a divine revelation. And the fundamental assumption of the regular law of the course of the world is in opposition to the contents of ecclesiastical doctrine concerning the miraculous interposition in the course of nature and of history. To the superficial observer there appears therefore to exist an irreconcilable conflict between science and religion. Here is the work of the philosophy of religion, to take away the appearance of an irreconcilable opposition between science and religion, in that the philosophy of religion teaches first of all to distinguish between the essence of religion and the ecclesiastical doctrines of a certain religion, and to comprehend the historical origin of these doctrines in the forms of thought of past times. To this purpose the method of psychological analysis and of historical comparison mentioned above is of service. When, then, by this critical process religion is traced to its real essence in the emotional consciousness of God, to which the dogmatic doctrines stand as secondary products and varied symbols, then it remains to show that between the essence of religion and that which science demands and presupposes, there exists not conflict but harmony. When the idea of God is recognized as the synthesis of the ideas of the true and the good, so then must all truth as sought by science, even as the highest good, which the system of ethics places as the purpose of all action—these must be recognized as the revelation of God in his eternal reason and goodness. The laws of our rational thinking then cannot be in conflict with divine revelation in history, and the laws of the natural order of the world can no more stand in conflict with the world-governing Omnipotence; but both, the laws of our thinking and those of the real world, reveal themselves as the harmonious revelations of the creative reason of God, which, according to Plato's fitting word, is the efficient ground of being as well as of knowing. It is therefore not merely a demand of religious belief that there is real truth in our God-consciousness, that there should be an activity and revelation of God himself in the human mind; it is also in the same manner a demand of science considering its last principles, that the world, in order to be known by us as a rational, regulated order, must have for its principle an eternal creative reason. Long ago the old master of thinking, Aristotle, recognized this fact clearly, when he said that order in the world without a principle of order could be as little thinkable as the order of an army without a commanding general.